Surviving Happily Ever After
by Onceforthefun
Summary: Sequel to For the Win. Quinn and Santana (Fabray) Lopez got off to a rocky start, but now that they've gotten passed the crazy, all the lies have been told, and their secrets have been brought out into the open, all that's left to do is to figure out how to live with each other and hope they have what it takes to find their happy ending.
1. And they lived happily ever after

**A/N: So here it is! I didn't actually think that it would take this long to get this story started, and I could blame it on moving, and getting settled in, but honestly I was hit by a serious case of writer's block. I have a pretty clear idea where this story is going to go, and I've written a couple of future chapters trying to figure out where to start. Since I know many people update on Sunday, I'm going to aim for a nice mid-week, hump day update for Wednesdays. I also updated Sam and Mercedes 'spin-off', First Comes Love, so check that out, too. Thanks for your patience!**

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><p>Quinn was in a rush to get to the office, and was not driving nearly as carefully as she probably should have. She checked the time on her dash again. <em>Shit<em>. She only had 15 more minutes to get to work and get clocked in, and had at least a 10 minute car ride. Quinn had her sights on a promotion coming up in her department, and Ryan had been doing his best to suck up to the boss and demean Quinn at every turn. She couldn't have tardies on her record right now.

"Come on," she hummed, hitting her steering wheel in frustration. Fighting down the urge that told her she shouldn't, she shifted her foot down on the gas, cutting off the car in the left lane as she eased her car into the space in front of the driver. There were screeching breaks, and honking horns, and Quinn was so busy with keeping the car straight, that she didn't see the cop car in her rear-view mirror until it was too late. She gave a look down at the speedometer and cussed. "_Shit!" _she screamed. This is the very last thing that she needed at the moment.

For a brief moment she considered gunning it and trying to outdistance the officer, but they were on a motorcycle; she wouldn't make it far. While the officer made his way to the window, Quinn went searching for her identification. There was a tap on her window. Quinn composed herself, put on her very best Fabray smile, and rolled down the window. "Morning officer!" she chirped so gaily it would have done Rachel Berry proud. "How are you?"

"Do you know why I pulled you over this morning, ma'am?" Why did officers bother asking that question? What did he expect her to say: _because I was speeding and nearly ran a car off the road? _That was called incriminating one's self, and that wasn't going to happen.

"Um…no sir."

The cop pulled 'his' helmet off, revealing a mane of very sensual, chestnut colored locks, that she shook out. "Do I _look_ like a man to you?"

At the display, Quinn noticed the things she had missed being occupied with finding her license and registration. Not only was the officer a woman, she was very much so. She had a short, but well built frame that was willowy and curvy, and damn was she gorgeous. Her face was flawless, perfect, and her lips were pillow soft and looked extremely kissable. "Er…no, ma'am. You _definitely _don't look like a man." She gave a sly smile. She didn't see what harm a little friendly flirting would do, and maybe she could get out of getting a ticket. "At all."

"I didn't think so," the woman returned cockily. "I don't know of any men out there as sexy as me. License and registration, please?"

Quinn handed the items over. The woman looked them over. "Do you know why I pulled you over Ms. Lopez."

"It's Mrs. Fabray-Lopez," Quinn gently corrected, hearing her wife in her head, "and no ma'am," she lied. "I don't."

"I pulled you over because you were driving recklessly over the speed limit."

"Was I?" Quinn gave a pout of her lips and let her eyes expand. "I didn't even realize. I'm _so_ sorry."

"Are you?"

Quinn nodded contritely. "Yes, ma'am. I was just on my way to work and I might have gone a mile or two over the speed limit by accident, but just because I was anxious to get to the office. If I promise not to do it again, can you just let me off with a warning?"

The woman peered at her over her sunglasses. "Do you understand how inconsiderate it is to speed on the highway? When it comes to _the road _all parties should share equally. Otherwise, only one party is happy, but when all involved participate equally everyone is happy. Do you understand?"

Quinn nodded rapidly. "Oh, yes ma'am, I do."

The officer's eyes narrowed. "I don't think you do. For some reason, Mrs. Lopez, you strike me as a very selfish person, _on the road_.

"I'm not," Quinn tried to assure her. She didn't want this beautiful woman to think that she was selfish. She was _very _generous.

"I _could_ give you a warning," the woman considered, "but you see if I did, I don't think that you would truly learn your lesson."

Quinn allowed her voice to fall to a more sultry tone. "I promise, I've learned my lesson. I'm a really," she paused to really emphasis the word, "quick learner."  
>The officer smirked and titled her head. "You see, Mrs. Lopez, that's exactly what I'm talking about."<p>

"Fabray-Lopez. My wife, she's pretty anal about it."

"Oh your wife is, is she? As I was saying, Mrs. Fabray," she teased the name, "Lopez. You move too fast. Some things you need to take slow."

"Like what?" she said innocently.

"Like _driving_."

Quinn seemed flustered. "I'm not sure I understand."

"Please step out of the car Mrs," and she paused again, "Fabray-Lopez."

"Why?" Quinn questioned. "Have I done something wrong?"

"An officer of the law gave you a direct command, ma'am. I need you to step out of your vehicle, please."

With reluctance and confusion, Quinn undid her seat belt and stepped out of the car. "What is this about, officer?" She was pushed forcefully into the body of her car. "Do you have any contraband on you? Weapons that I should know about?"

"Of course not!" Quinn screeched. "What are you doing!" the officer's hands had started to move on her body. "I'm searching you," she informed. "Please, don't move."

"I don't think that this is…oh!" She let out a shriek because the woman's hand had gone over her butt, and she had squeezed. At the same time she was pushed further into the side of her car. "If you continue to resist, I will have to cuff you and call for back up, and I don't wish to do that. Please, let me do my job."

Quinn felt her body being pushed into the van again, but this time she felt the woman's back pressed up against her. Her breast pushed into her back. Her legs were kicked apart, spreading her open. She felt something lightly brush against her neck. At first she didn't know what it was, but the second time it happened, she realized that it was those lips, those pillow-like kissable lips, had been pressed against the back of her neck. The movements on her body slowed, as the woman's hands gently kneaded Quinn's breasts. Her breath hitched. "See, how much better it is when you don't _rush_?"

One of the cops' hands found its way inside her blouse, gently tucking the hem out from her skirt. "Oh," Quinn gasped when her nipple was pinched sharply. She moaned when it was pinched again, because this time the cop had rolled her hips into her backside, and it had felt oh so good. "Oh God." She felt a tug on her hair, jerking her head back. Lips quickly attached themselves to her skin, taking small, nibbley bites. The officer laughed. "Turn around."

Quinn did as she was commanded. Lips not so gently wrapped around her neck, sucking and licking at the skin. The woman slowly licked her way up to Quinn's lips before she gave her a rough kiss, and Quinn had been right: totally kissable. Quinn arched into the woman's caresses, and it didn't surprise either of them that she was incredibly turned on when the cop's hand slid beneath her skirt and past the hem of her underwear. "So you are a fast learner after all," she leered. "On your knees!"

Quinn had a moment of pause. "What?"

"On your knees! You're going to give me head, and show me that you learned your lesson about speeding through places when you should be taking your time."

Quinn sank to her knees in front of this incredible sexy, commanding woman, as the officer started to undo her utility belt. She casually let it fall to the ground, before undoing her trouser pants, and exposing the boy shorts beneath. "If you do a really good job, I'll give you a lesson in sharing that you won't ever forget." Quinn could smell the woman's arousal, and licked her lips in anticipation of what she was about to do. The woman took a step closer…

Quinn woke up to the feeling of Santana attempting to slide out of the bed. Quinn tightened her hold on her. "Not yet," she grumbled. Her wife's laughter invaded the dream she was trying oh so desperately to cling to. It was just getting good!

Santana chuckled. "I've gotta, babe, if I'm going to make the gym before work."

_Stay and I'll give you an even better work out,_ she wanted to say. "Lay with me just a few more minutes," she attempted to barter, instead.

In answer, Santana leaned down and placed a kiss on Quinn's lips. "I'll make it up to you later, babe, I promise."

A half-awake Quinn sighed but let her go. Santana had been getting up early, without fail, for over a month. It'd started with a desire to make sure that she was in better than good shape for the physical she was made to take to make sure 'everything was in working order' before she could be reinstated with the GSA, but since then it's become a kind of a compulsion. "You never make it up to me," she said to herself, pulling Santana's pillow to her chest. It was a poor substitute, but at least it smelled like her. Dream cop-Santana hadn't smelled like her wife. Dream cop Santana had smelled like polyester and gunpowder, but damn she'd been so hot.

Quinn was so wound up that she was tempted to get off by humping Santana's pillow, just to see what her wife would do when they went to bed tonight and got a whiff of her. Actually…she scratched that plan. She'd probably just make Quinn switch with her, and as much as Quinn liked her smell, she didn't want to sleep on it.

She listened to Santana get dressed, and was surprised when the bed dipped under Santana's weight. She gently pulled the pillow away to slide into the space between Quinn's arms. She smiled when lips were pressed lightly against hers. "Te amo, me amour," Santana said softly.

"I love you, too," Quinn replied. She opened her eyes and briefly made eye contact with Santana before the woman pulled away from her. She kissed her on the forehead. "See you when you get home," she said softly. And then she was gone.

Once alone, Quinn allowed herself to fully let out a sigh. Nothing was wrong. Things had finally kind of settled down between them. They were getting the hang of this being married to each other thing. They were learning how to trust each other, to come to each other first before making harmful assumptions that did their marriage no good. They didn't get into fights every other day. They weren't playing musical apartments anymore, or stressed to the max. The book that had been occupying Santana's life for the past couple of months had debut o huge successes. Things were quiet with Santana's side job, and except for the physical, and the three dinners that they'd had with Bryne, it was like it didn't even exist.

Bryne, in a home setting, was like a mixture of Brittany and Tina. She did idle talk, was fun to quote movies with, could effortlessly make you laugh, but was secretly far more intelligent than you imagined, and deep down you wondered if maybe she was secretly a vampire. The first dinner things had been kind of tense between her and Santana, but by the third one it was like they were all old friends. She even had a real name-Brynley Ann Matheson- answered questions, and volunteered conversation. The places she talked about were most likely places she'd actually been to, but her talk of her childhood, and early adulthood, Quinn was sure that those, like the name, were no doubt faked, but it made Quinn feel better, like she was just any nice, normal co-worker of her wife's.

They hadn't had sex in months now, but that was only because they were sticking to their self-imposed celibacy. That was annoying, because she enjoyed having sex with her wife, but just because they weren't having sex, didn't mean that they weren't still intimate with each other. Santana could still kiss her breathless; Quinn could still get Santana to start panting with little effort. Santana still came up behind her when she was cooking in the kitchen, and laid kisses on her neck; Quinn still got into the shower with her on occasion. Once, she demanded that Santana masturbate for her, which might have been cheating, but damn was it hot. They still touched each other, but in a high school, both feet on the ground –except for the showering together-kind of way.

There were no more damaging secrets between them anymore. I mean how could there still be? There wasn't much left for them to be surprised by. That her wife had managed to keep a semi-dangerous job from her for 9 or 10 years, that was old news by now. That she was proficient in several languages, as well as several different modes of defense, and could shoot out the star on carnival events because she had sniper like shooting abilities…well that just meant that Santana could win her the big teddy bear instead of the cheap consolation prize when they went to the Brockton fair. Oh, and every woman's biggest fear- that their partner had a secret family - that was exposed, brought to light, and gotten over.

Speaking of said family, well not really of the family as much as the son who was currently five; they hadn't even heard so much as a whisper about him since they'd gone over to Hazel's apartment to find it completely cleaned out, but Santana seemed okay. She had a brief breakdown when she tried to figure out what she should do with the gifts she brought him back from Arizona, but other than that, she was okay. She wasn't denial Quinn junior year, and she wasn't crazy Quinn senior year. As far as Quinn knew, Santana was coping with the whole situation. She hadn't shut Quinn out. She was neither pretending that it didn't happen, nor was she moping. She was dealing with it. With him disappearing. She would talk to Quinn about it, something that past Santana wouldn't do, and past Quinn wouldn't do.

Everything was coming together, settling down. There was nothing wrong with them. Things just weren't exactly…right.

Santana had left out a breakfast of oatmeal, a hardboiled egg, and a half glass of V-8, on the kitchen counter, and Quinn tucked into it as soon as she saw it. She pulled up her favorite news apps and sifted through some world news articles while she slowly consumed her food. She thought about calling Mercedes, but thought against it, and continued to eat her breakfast in silence. She wondered if it was silly that she was missing her wife, especially since she had only just left the house.

Unfortunately, the ride in to work was completely uneventful. There were no sexy Santana cops to stop her and ravish her along the way. The drive went smoothly, and she even got a good parking space, which used to be the markers of a good day. Maybe it was because everything seemed right at the moment that things seemed wrong to her, Quinn mused. At no point in her relationship with Santana would she have described things as being anywhere close to 'smooth'. Maybe it was because they weren't fighting with each other, and inadvertently hurting the others feelings, that she felt off. Maybe that's honestly what it took for her relationship to survive…geez, if that was the case, Quinn really needed to see a therapist.

While Quinn fixed herself a cup of coffee, she chastised herself for feeling like there was something wrong because nothing was wrong.

"How's it going, Fabray?"

Quinn kind of tensed, fixing her face as she turned to acknowledge her coworker. "Fabray-Lopez, Ryan," she corrected. "You know I'm married."

Ryan followed her back to her cube, his eyes automatically falling to the photos on Quinn's desk. There were three of them, and all three had been taken on her wedding day, even though they had been taken on three separate days. The one on the left was of her and Santana on their first wedding day, the day they actually got married, with Quinn dressed in green and looking like a wood nymph. She kind of liked the hippy look on her. The one on the right was at their re-do wedding with both she and Santana wearing somewhat more traditional gowns. The one in the middle, she had had to get permission from Santana to put up, but it was taken on the beach by Puck, and it was of her, and her wife, with Philip in the center.

Quinn booted up her computer and logged into her terminal. Ryan leaned against her cube wall. "Who's the kid?" Ryan questioned.

"Santana's son, Philip. " she knew she already answered this question, but she was sure Ryan only asked it again to annoy her.

"Cute kid. He looks like her."

Quinn turned back to look at the picture, as she often did whenever someone mentioned Phil and Santana's resemblance. She couldn't deny it was true. Philip looked like the Italian version of her wife, with some features that could be Puck's. Hazel didn't look like Santana, and Jenna's brother, 'Bug', didn't look like Puck, but together they had created a kid that looked like a mix of the mother of her future children and the father of her current child.

Quinn smiled. "Yea, he does. He's going to be a real heartbreaker when he gets a little older. Was there something that I could help you with, Ryan? I was kind of busy."

"How's the Suffolk Fidelity account going for you?"

Quinn nodded. The little turd had just come to spy. Ever since Ryan realized that he couldn't have her, he went to wanting whatever she wanted. A promotion was coming up, nothing big, just something slightly better than lateral. It came with a slight pay raise, and a team of two people. Quinn wanted it because it would give her management experience, which would put her into pool for upward movement, and Ryan had expressed no interest in the position until Quinn had decided to go after it, but this guy had no idea who he was up against. "It's going well. Just a lot to do."

"Well, I don't want to keep you from things. Nice chatting with you, Quinn."

"And you as well. See you around."

The day kind of dragged, and she caught herself looking over at Santana's picture several times throughout the day. 5:00 rolled, and even though it was Friday and she had hit 40 hours at 3:00, she didn't stop working. Santana was probably at the gym again, and wouldn't be home for another couple of hours anyway, and besides she had work that still needed to be finished. She fired off a quick text letting Santana know that she would be home late. She was surprised when she got a response almost immediately.

**Santana Fabray-Lopez: Britts. Should be here for a few hours. **

**Quinn Fabray-Lopez: Ok. What do you want for dinner?**

The new, improved, more rational and secure in her marriage Quinn, didn't panic at the words on her phone. That this was the third time in two weeks that Santana had spent with Brittany didn't even trigger any strong emotions on Quinn's part. Santana, however, was learning her wife, too.

**Santana Fabray-Lopez: Using home equipment to shoot stuff.**

Brittany didn't still film FF2 episodes at her residence, but the old equipment was still set up there, and Quinn had spent most of her adult life trying not to imagine what Brittany used said equipment for.

**Quinn Fabray-Lopez: I'm feeling pizza tonight if you want. **

** Santana Fabray-Lopez: Def be down 4 that. Wanna eat over here or home?**

** Quinn Fabray-Lopez: Home. **

** Santana Fabray-Lopez: Come pick me up when you're done? We can get Marcos!**

Quinn texted back her affirmative answer and hung up the phone. When 7:00 rolled around, she clocked out and drove over to Brittany and Tamara's house. No one answered her knock, but the door was unlocked, so she let herself in and headed upstairs at the sound of her wife's voice.

"…and they all lived happily ever after." After a second, Santana gave a satisfied nod at the camera. Quinn walked fully into the room, taking in the set up, and the camera.

"What're you doing?" she questioned, curiously.

Santana smiled at the camera, holding her finger up, off frame. "And _that's_ how I met your mother."

She pushed 'stop' on the remote and turned her attention to Quinn. "I'm recording a video for little Tanner or Little Anita, so they can watch this when they're like teenagers and stuff and think about how cool it is, or see my hotness and be like 'damn, she's still got it'. I got the idea from that show, _How I Met Your Mother_."

Quinn smirked. "Tanner?"

"If it's a boy. And Anita if it's a girl. In Spanish ita or ito is like a term of endearment, and there's only _one_ Santana, so they can be a little Santanita-well really it would be Santancita, but whoever heard of someone named Ancita?-ergo 'Anita'."

Quinn hoped that Santana's thoughts made sense in her own mind. She placed a gentle hand on the side of Santana's face. "Sweetie, I love you, but don't you think that…um…_we_ should decide on our kids names together?"

Santana's facial expression showed her confusion. "Uh…duh."

"And people usually wait until they're pregnant to start making videos for their kids."

Santana smiled, and shook her head. "This isn't for our kids. This is for the little Troutytot. I'm going to film one for Squishy next. I know Tamara and Britt think it's going to be a girl, but I still think it's going to be a boy, so he can be named Santiago, and they can call him Tio for a nickname."

"Who is Squishy?"

"Brittany and Tamara's kid? Finding Nemo?" When Quinn didn't seem to catch the reference Santana shrugged it off. "It's Brittany."

"You're expecting our friends to name their children after you?"

"Not expect, will allow. I think that they've proven their loyalty to me enough to bestow that privilege on them, and I trust them enough to raise their children to bring honor to my name."

Quinn snorted then gave an all out laugh. "You're not serious, are you?" Santana nodded solemnly, shooting Quinn an appalled look at her response. "You've got such a big ego, Santana!"

Santana stood up with a suggestive smile. "I've got a _really_ big ego, babe. You want to see how big of an ego I've got?"

Quinn strong armed her to keep her from getting closer before she could get too close. "Don't start, San," she said, sternly.

"Oh, come on, babe, I wants to get my kisses on!"

"No! I'm cutting you off! I'm tired of you blue waffling me, Santana!"

Santana snickered. " I don't think that means what you think it means, babe."

Quinn poked a finger in her chest. "You know what I mean. No riling me up just to pull back when I'm all hot and bothered and have to go take a cold shower."

"Cold shower? We have an adjustable-head shower hose, babe. You turn it on real warm, and you grab the neck and position it like so-,"

Quinn grabbed Santana's hand to keep her from demonstrating how to pleasure oneself with their shower nozzle in the middle of Brittany's house. "This video," she pointed, trying to get off of the topic of sex.

"Yeah, I was just telling about how Mercedes and I met, and about you, and us of course."

"Have you ever watched the show?"

Santana shrugged. "Not really."

Quinn gave her a peck on the lips. "Watch the show. I don't think you quite got the concept of it. It's about how the _father_ met their _mother_."

Santana let out a noise. "That makes more sense! So I should totally like do this for _our_ kids."

Quinn nodded. "Yes. I know I'm probably really late in asking this, but _when_ did you meet Mercedes."

Santana laughed at the expression on Quinn's face, because despite how much they knew about each other, there was still so many things that were new. "3rd grade. I met Berry in fourth, Puck and Finn I met when I was 7…so second grade. I met Mike then, too."

"You've known all of them that long and it took you _that_ long to become friends with them?"

"Whoa. Just because I insulted Mercedes all the time, doesn't mean that we weren't friendly. I never really had any beef with her until Puck got interested in her. Finn and I were friends at some point but then high school happened, and he just seemed to become so much more fucking morally superior than all of us minions that surrounded him, that I couldn't deal with my imperfections anymore and had to find other friends. Puck, of course we were raising hell together, Chang we've always been cool; we've never been super close friends, but we've always been friendly."

"When'd you meet me?"

Santana rolled her eyes. "You know when I met you, stop fishing, baby."

"What about Brittany?"

"You know that, too."

Quinn was actually surprised that Santana was over here when Brittany wasn't, and she wondered if the other times she had come over it had been the same story. "Where _is_ Brittany?"

Santana rolled her eyes. "Tamara has her out running errands."

Quinn looked around. "Okay, so where's Tamara?"

"Working. She went into the studio shortly after Brittany left. I think she was just using it as a diversion to get Brittany out of the house so she could get away because Brittany's been kind of 'hovery' lately. Is that a word, hovery?" Santana shrugged. "And also…she keeps trying to get Tamara to dance with her."

"Why?"

"Because she wants their baby to be a dancer like Tio's other mommy, duh. So she's not talking to the belly, she's trying to dance with it."

"You don't honestly think that Tamara is going to let you name their baby after you, do you?"

"I don't see why she wouldn't want to."

"Do you think _I'd _be cool with our son being named Pierce?"

Santana kind of winced, the happy smile disappearing from her face. "I can see your point," she said.

"Santana…?"

She gave a somewhat strained smile. "I'll finish this up later, it's not like the baby's going to be born tomorrow anyway. Let's get our pizza on."

An hour later they were home, and Santana was looking for something for them to watch, while Quinn fished out plates and napkins and grabbed a glass of water for Santana, and a wine cooler for herself. Santana was already situated on the couch when Quinn came in from the kitchen, and as she sat down in between Santana's legs, the thought occurred to her that this was possibly the first time that she'd allowed her wife to hold her since she got back from the Southwest.

Santana must have realized it to, because she gave a happy little hum, placing a kiss on the back of Quinn's neck. Quinn leaned back into her. "So what are we watching?"

Santana had just taken a bite of pizza when she asked so she had to wait a second or two before she could answer. _"Los Hombres de Paco_."

"The…_brother's_ of Paco?"

"Close Paco's men. It's a Spanish soap opera."

"Umm…why?"

"Because the R&B indoctrination I promised you is postponed because I didn't think making you listen to songs about knocking boots was right until we're knocking boots again, so until then, I thought we should explore some other parts of our heritage."

"Um…I'm not Hispanic."

"And I'm not European, but I still sang 'ring around the rosies' when I was a little kid, besides, Mrs. Lopez-,"

"Fabray-Lopez,"

"You are Hispanic now, and one day you shall be teaching my children-,"

"_Our_ children,"

"And I can't have you falling short. Otherwise you'll go telling them that Christopher Columbus and Davy Crockett were heroes."

"Y_ou're _not Spanish, either."

"Do you even _know_ where Mexicans come from? Ay, what are they teaching these young children in school these days? Quinn, once upon a time, there were not really 'Mexicans' there were the Aztec and there were the Europeans. And then they not so happily cohabitated together, and thus a 'mixed' culture sprang up. So, there's some Spanish heritage in nearly all of the Mexican- and I might even venture to say the Latin American-peoples, sort of the same way that black Americans don't look the same as black Africans. But that wasn't the culture I was referring to, though I _am_ going to need you to improve on your Spanish; I was talking about exploring your _gay_ heritage. I would have started us off with the L-Word, but then that would have led to a discussion about who was the Bette and who was the Tina, and we're not ready to have that discussion, yet."

"Who are Bette and Tina?"

"And that's why we're watching _Los Hombres de Paco_. It's like _Rizzoli & Isles _onlyinstead of the producers playing up the characters' obvious chemistry and then mocking their gay audiences for noticing, well…you'll see. This is so much better!"

"But I don't speak Spanish," Quinn protested.

"I should tell you to just deal with it; learn the language or get out, but I'm feeling generous." Santana played with the remote. "I put on the subtitles for you."

"You're so kind."

"Anything for you, babe."

They ate slowly because Santana had to explain the relationships between the characters, because she started them off in season 6, when Pepa is first introduced to the show, and so much happened in the previous seasons that she had to catch her up to speed. "Would you ever make out with someone at a church?" Quinn questioned, almost immediately after hearing their back story.

"If I was stoned, maybe."

Quinn turned to look at her. "Would you really?"

Santana shook her head. "No way, there are some things I find sacred. Geez!"

A few more minutes passed in near silence. "Pepa kind of reminds me of you." Santana kind of chuckled, but didn't say anything. "You're prettier."

Santana traced a finger over Quinn's skin, softly, the only indication that she'd heard her. "Are you done with the pizza?" Santana questioned. "Or are you going to get another slice?"

Quinn had already had three and it wasn't like they were small slices. That fourth was looking awfully delicious, but unlike her wife, she wasn't going to the gym every day. "I'm done," she answered. Santana stood up to take the box into the kitchen. "Can you bring me my ice cream?" Quinn called out to her. Santana didn't answer, but she did bring the pint carton back with her, and Quinn shifted up so she could sit back behind her.

Quinn felt lips on the back of her neck as Santana adjusted. When she was seated, Quinn leaned into her.

"We need a thing."

"What do you mean?" Santana reached around to dip something into Quinn's carton. It was a carrot. Santana had brought a pack back with her when she'd gotten up.

Quinn jerked when she saw it. "San, that's gross!"

"No, it's not babe," she said as she pushed the carrot in Quinn's face. "Try it!"

"Quinn laughed as she pushed it away. "Ew. Doesn't it defeat the purpose of eating a carrot if you dip it in ice cream?"

"No, it enhances it. It's a scientific fact; the carrot regulates any calories that the ice cream has in it, rendering whatever you dip a carrot into calorie-free."

"That's ridiculous."

"No, it's how I maintain this body that you love so much." Santana moved to dip the carrot again, but Quinn moved the carton away. "Q, quite being a little piggy and share!"

"Get your own!"

"We live in a community property state, babe. What's mine is yours, and what's yours is mine; the law says you have to share!"

Quinn was still busy trying to figure out how someone could be so annoying, and so adorable at the same time. She held the carton close enough to Santana so that she could dip her carrot in it. "Gonna try it now?"

"No, that's still gross," she protested. She realized, too, that this little back and forth between them had pretty much been the most light-hearted things had been between them in a while.

Santana rolled her eyes, and continued to chomp on her carrot. "What were you saying?"

"A thing, we need a thing."

"For what?"

"To have something that we do together. You were complaining a little while ago about the fact that we are too young to stay in on Friday nights, yet it's Friday, and here we are, at home, watching TV."

"Do you not like this show?"

Actually, despite being horrifically lost about the back story, she was enjoying the show tremendously. "I like the show, and trust me, I like doing this with you. I'm just saying that we need something that we can do together as a couple."

Santana thought about it as she chomped on a carrot. "Are we those kind of people?"

Quinn turned in her arms. "Would it be so bad if we were?"

Santana leaned up to kiss her. "If you want to be those kind of people, we can be those kind of people, babe. So what kind of people do you want us to be? Like crafts people?"  
>"Crafts?"<p>

"Yeah," she said, enthusiastically. "We can take up sculpting and recreate that ghost scene."

Santana trailed her hands up Quinn's arms, raising the skin.

"I don't see us as crafters."

"Oh, but baby we can take flower arrangement courses, and learn how to dry flowers, and make centerpieces, and crochet cozies and doilies."

Quinn hit her lightly. "You're teasing!"

Santana held up her fingers. "Only a little babe."

"I was being serious, San."

"I said only a little! It was a _little_ tease. Just a little. What about cycling. We can go buy _Specialized _bikes, with the pedals that you have to have special shoes, and sign up for a what's the marathon for bicyclist?"

"A century ride."

"What's that?"

"It's a hundred mile bike ride."

"Yeah, that, we can do that."

She tried to imagine her and Santana biking around Boston, but the only thing that she could really see was Santana in super tight bike shorts, refreshing herself with ice cold water that accidentally missed her mouth and soaked into her shirt, causing her nipples to harden, and…Quinn liked her lips.

"It's a thought. I wouldn't be against something physical. Yoga maybe."

Santana quickly dismissed that. "No, and no, babe. I am open to us finding something to do together, but not that. No way. We are not going to be the lesbians who do yoga, and drink bobo,"

"You mean boba?"

"And chi tea, and buy up real estate in inner cities so that it pushes out the poor people who've lived in the neighborhoods forever, and take selfies about urban decay. No ma'am."

"Wow, pretty strong feelings there, hon. It was just Yoga."

Santana rapidly shook her head. "It's never just Yoga. Gentrification is like the stealing of Native American lands all over again. I wrote a paper about it."

"Okay, okay, no Yoga. We could do volunteer work."

Santana actually paused. "I like that. I already read at the Children's Hospital twice a month, but that's not really a lot. What kind of volunteer work are you talking? I wouldn't mind something that involves getting dirty."

"Of course you wouldn't," Quinn smirked.

"Hey, it's been you and not me that's had her mind in the gutter lately. Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner, so pretty much any charity that deals with food will have plenty of volunteers right now."

"Battered woman shelter?"

Santana's face closed up. "No. Not…I can't right now. Not that, not youth programs…I can't," It was hard enough for her to still go to the Children's Hospital, but she had been doing that long before Phil was even born. Quinn placed a hand on Santana's shoulder, and her wife just collapsed at the touch. "I just keep thinking, 'what if I didn't tell him I loved him enough'? I said those words to him, but did I say it enough for him to know it's forever? Did I say it enough to last a life time? I told him I would walk him into his classroom when I got back, and I didn't. I told him I'd bring him back something from my vacation, and I didn't. I missed when he turned five, Q, and that's a big age: five! And then I feel guilty because all I want to do is talk to you about it, and I feel guilty about that, because I got five more years than you did, so it should be enough, right? That should be enough? But what if I didn't say it enough, what if he doesn't know? What if he forgets? What if he grows up thinking I didn't love him?"

Quinn held her as tightly as she could with the awkward angle, as her wife silently cried. Quinn threaded her fingers through her hair, lightly scratching her scalp every now and then. Her hair was still short. It would have grown out by now, but Santana had cut it again. Quinn wasn't kidding when she said that it was sexy, but it represented a change that she wasn't quite ready for. She was amazed that they'd gotten to a place where Santana would actually allow her to hold her while she cried.

"We could be gardeners."

Santana sniffled. "We don't have a garden."

"We will when we get our house."

Santana pulled her face out of Quinn's lap. "So you want a house? Not an apartment, but a house?"

"I _guess_ we could move into a new apartment, but I kind of want this place to be _our _place. Like I don't want a starter home, I want a home that we can grow into. That we can raise our kids and grow old in, you know?"

Santana nodded. "That's how I feel, too."

Quinn moved fingers up and down Santana's arms. No more tears fell but she was still breathing erratically. "You can talk to me about anything, honey. Even if it'll make either of us sad, I'll still do my best to listen."

Santana nodded into her wife's lap. "This feeling doesn't ever go away does it?"

Quinn grimaced slightly. "Not really, but with time it doesn't hurt _as_ much."

Santana held Quinn's hand, interlocking their fingers. "Babe?"

Her tone was cautions, so Quinn braced herself. "Yeah?"

"Would you be upset if I told you that I don't think I'm going to be ready to have a baby for some time? I don't want Phil thinking…that I went out and replaced him or anything, and I know it's like all of our friends are like baby making right now, but- "

Quinn stopped her. "Is that why you've been avoiding me?"

"I haven't been avoiding you, Q, not exactly, but all of this is hard, and it's new to me. I thought, I thought I was prepared for if this happened, and I wasn't. I thought it wouldn't…_feel_ like this, and I know I said I wanted a whole brood, but now…it's going to be awhile before I'm ready." She stared at her wife earnestly.

Quinn kissed the top of her head. "San, if you decided that you just wanted it to be the two of us, for the rest of our lives, I wouldn't be upset with you. If we ended up having a house full, or none at all, as long as it's you I'm sharing a life with, that's all that matters."

"That and Powerball?"

"The odds of you ever winning are 1 in 175 million."

"I won you and your 1 in 7 billion."

Quinn shook her head. "So corny." Quinn kissed her on the lips. "I love you, San."

"Love you, too."

They stayed like that for a few more minutes, but then Santana pushed play and the sounds of the Spanish soap opera once again filled the apartment.

"San?"

"Yeah, baby?"

"Do you think we will? Live happily ever after, I mean?"

Santana pressed pause again, taking a moment to think about it. "I guess we're going to have to; I already wrote the book. It's too late to change the ending."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So quick note. I promise that this isn't going to turn into a "Phil thing" like FTW was a Santana's job thing. This first chapter was just to get that issue kind of out of the way. This story is about Santana and Quinn learning how to be married to each other. It'll be mostly fluff, romance, with a little hurt/comfort and angst thrown in for variety. Any questions just leave in the reviews, or pm me and I'll answer it. Cheers! **


	2. Lazy Saturdays In

Quinn knew that it was too early for her wife to be wiggling on the bed, just from how tired she still was. She tightened her hold on Santana, so she couldn't move. "It's Saturday, honey, it's okay to sleep in," she said sleepily.

"I'm getting up to make you breakfast."

"What time is it?"

There was a pause. "6:00."

She shook her head. "Nope, too early," Quinn said, pulling Santana back down. "Lay down," she commanded.

Santana gave a kind of chuckle/giggle. "Am I your dog now, baby?"

Quinn rolled over onto her, using her body weight to pin Santana to the bed. "Stay."

Quinn knew she won when Santana's arms went around her waist. She shifted them, though, so they were both on their sides, and she pulled Quinn into her arms. "If baby wants me to stay, I'll stay."

Quinn snuggled against her. "Good, cause you owe me make-up cuddles."

Santana pressed her lips to Quinn's forehead. "I do owe you make-up cuddles," she agreed.

"Can we stay in bed all day?"

"But I have to make you breakfast."

"You don't _have_ to."

"Yes, I do. I made a promise."

Quinn smiled at that. She loved that Santana held herself to a silly promise that she made when she was attempting to coax Quinn into saying yes to marrying her. She loved that she stuck to her promises, even the small ones. (And she loved that her wife had proposed to her via orgasm, and then pretended to be oblivious as to why this was not a social norm the next day).

"And I have to go to the gym."

Quinn's hands tightened around Santana. "You don't have to go to the gym."

Santana shook her head. "Yes, I do."

"Why have you been spending so much time at the gym? Did you develop a crush on one of the personal trainers or something? Some 40-something milf been waving her newly trimmed ass your way?"

Santana snorted at the visual. "No, babe, you're the only milf I wanna fuck. I'm at the gym because I seem to have an excess amount of energy lately, and I've been trying to work it off." _What in the world did that even…_oh. Oh! "You kind of sleep sex me, babe."

Even though Quinn hadn't yet opened her eyes, she felt herself blushing. "Have I really!"

Santana laughed, and Quinn was so curious to know if her wife was watching her that she finally did open them, only to see that Santana's brown eyes were alight in amusement. "Hi."

Quinn smiled. "Hi," she said back. Quinn leaned forward, initiating a kiss. She loved early morning kisses with Santana. Nothing beat a first thing in the morning, both parties still half-asleep, fondling kiss. It was second only to wake-up sex. Quinn kissed the breath out of Santana's lungs and then pulled away, a wicked smile on her face. Hey, she had been the president of the Chastity Club after all. She knew how to tease better than most.

It took a moment for Santana's breath to return. "Damn," she mumbled. She licked her lips to gather up any lingering Quinn on them. "And yes, yes you do. What was it this morning?"

"Laboratory," Quinn admitted with a blush. "I was a medical examiner and you had me on the counter doing some in-depth under cover investigating."

Quinn could see the scenario playing out in Santana's mind because she went quiet for a few minutes, occasioning a smile every now and then. "Someone's been watching too much Los Hombres de Paco," Santana chided.

"Que es esto para ti?"

"Muy bien, Quinnie!"

Quinn laughed, but continued. "Un roya o…I didn't catch the rest of that. What is a roya?"

"Roya is lightning, which still kind of fits. But she said, rollo. Two ll's makes the yo sound. It means roll or affair. I like to think that you are an exotic adventure, baby." Santana initiated a long, slow-burning kiss.

When she tried to pull away, Quinn buried her fingers in her shirt, keeping her close. "You're not going to the gym today," she said firmly. "If you've got some excess energy you need to burn off, I've got something better that we can do."

Santana smiled at that. "Oh really?"

Quinn brought her lips up to her wife's. "Really," she responded.

From time to time, Santana forgot that she was married to Quinn Fabray (Lopez). Santana's idea of burning off excess energy: sex, or in the absence of that, a hot and heavy make-out session, or even going for a jog together and getting to watch her wife's ass and breasts bounce as they moved beside or behind each other. But no…Quinn was Quinn, and had far different ideas. After a couple more hours in bed with each other, and Santana making breakfast for them (mini quinoa breakfast quiches with passion fruit and slices of avocado), Quinn got set on showing Santana how she wanted to get rid of excess energy: rearranging the apartment. Starting with the bedroom and moving their way out.

Santana had been building up quite an endurance over the past few weeks, but after moving the bed, a book case, night stands, rearranging the closet, and the bookshelf _again_, not to mention all the little things that went on the stands, or all the not so little books on the shelf in a not so fun way, Santana found her energy draining.

The left side of the couch hit the carpet. Quinn used her hip to line the right side up properly while Santana stood off to the side watching her. "How about here?" Quinn questioned.

Santana thought about it, collapsing on to the seat, testing it. "No."

"Why no?"

"I can't see the TV."

"Santana, if you don't get your ass up right now-"

Santana grinned at her wife. "What're you going to do to me?"

Quinn let out a shriek, which let her know that she wasn't being received as cute and charming, but that she was seriously pushing Quinn's buttons. So she stood up, hands extended in a gesture of peace. "Okay, okay," she said, trying to ease the she-hulk look in her wife's eyes. "Calm down, blondie."

"Don't tell me to calm down," Quinn hissed. "I have spent all morning trying to rearrange my apartment-,"

"Ah hah!" Santana said triumphantly. "See, I told you: you still think of this place as your apartment!"

"So it doesn't _just _feel like it's my place anymore, and the least you can do is actually give me some constructive input on where the furniture should go!"

"How is telling you that I can't see the TV not constructive?"

"Because we can move the fucking TV!"

"Language, Quinnie!"

"San, I am seriously this close to-," she took long, even breaths. This used to help her in dealing with this woman who was her once enemy and she had now pledged to spend the rest of her life with; there was once a time in her life when Quinn used to think that she was smart.

Santana, realizing that she was seriously frustrating Quinn, pulled her into her arms, kissing her neck. "I'm sorry, babe," she quickly apologized. "You have been so good about this." And she had. She really had. She had even packed up some of her things to make more room for Santana.

Although they had been sharing apartments since they said 'I do', really since Santana proposed, and they had kind of carved their niches out in the spaces that the other had left open, Quinn didn't want Santana to feel like she had to carve out space. Now that Santana no longer had her apartment, Quinn was striving to make it so that Santana didn't feel like she was now living in _Quinn's _place. "Honestly, though, I didn't see anything wrong with the way things were arranged before."

"I chose the arrangement before," was the answer she got. "Look, I know you didn't want to move in here with me, but we're stuck here for a few months and I just wanted to make this place feel more like," she shrugged, clearly frustrated. "Home."

Santana gave her a more reassuring squeeze. "First off, get the idea out of your head that I didn't want to move in with you. And second it does feel like home," she assured her. "It felt like home the first time I stepped foot into this apartment, and you know why?" Quinn shook her head, waiting for whatever snarky or condescending thing Santana had to say. "You're my home, Quinn. So no matter if I'm moving into your apartment, or we're living in a box on the side of the road, it will feel like home to me, because that's where I am when I'm with you."

After a minute, Quinn pushed her away.

"God, you've gotten so corny."

Santana smirked. "You know you love it, babe." Santana sat back down on the couch, testing it out. "Fair warning: this couch has got to go once we get our place."

Quinn sat down beside her. Santana automatically adjusted to hold her. "What's wrong with this couch? I love this couch."

"I know you love this couch, Q, you would."

"What's that mean?"

"This looks like June Cleaver's couch."

"It does not look like June Cleaver's couch! This is a nice, sophisticated, adult couch, unlike that monstrosity that you had taking up your space."

"Garbo was not a monstrosity, Garbo is a relic, and we _will _be finding space for him in our new place."

"You _named _the couch Garbo? Not really making a case for how that couch wasn't garbage. And what do you mean we will be finding space for it? That _thing _was marched down to the curve."

"That _thing_?" Santana demanded. "I've had that couch since college!"

Quinn rolled her eyes. "When you saved it from the dump? You graduated, shouldn't your furniture?"

"Oh, god, you sound like one of those stupid hipster commercials. You're so corporate America, babe. Just keep feeding into their lies. And like I would really just throw out Garbo. He's seen me through a lot. He's in storage just waiting to be sprung."

"That couch was a death trap!"

"That couch is probably the most comfortable piece of furniture on this planet, not like this couch."

"It's not coming into our new place."

"If you get to keep your _Leave it to Beaver _couch, I get to keep Garbo."

Quinn and Santana stared each other down. "Looks like we'll be buying some new furniture," Quinn eventually said. Santana smirked. "Speaking of getting new furniture for this hypothetical house of ours, I know we're not looking for it yet, per se, but what are we looking for?"

Santana picked up the remote at the same time that she contemplated the question. "Like in general, or do I need to get your notepad out so you can start making your lists?"

"Who said anything about lists?" Santana gave her a knowing look. Quinn rolled her eyes. "It's in the drawer."

Santana laughed, giving her wife a kiss before she jumped up to go retrieve said notebook. She handed it to Quinn with a low bow before resettling on the couch. She watched Quinn write out the words 'wish list', and underlined it. "So we're definitely looking for a house?"

"Yes, and I'm okay with living a little outside of the city, too."

"But no major commutes."

"No," Santana easily agreed. "30 minutes at most."

"I think that should be a firm limit," Quinn agreed. Although they could get more house further outside of the city, she really didn't want to have to spend more than an hour in her car a day. Also, the idea of living in the suburbs, and living a suburban lifestyle was just as unappealing. She wrote down 30 minutes. She started to write down 'hardwoods' but paused. "Okay, so I know you said that you wanted hardwoods," Quinn stopped to blush because of her wife's reason to have them, "but is that something you want all the way throughout the house?"

Santana fluttered her eyebrows. "I don't know. Do we plan on fucking in every room in the house?" she questioned in an open-ended way. Quinn bit down on her lip, shifting on the seat. "And when I say hardwoods, I don't mean like that crappy high gloss stuff you see on every single home improvement show on television. I want a nice dark wood that looks like something you'd find in an 18th century lighthouse. But not in any of the bedrooms. I hate hardwood in bedrooms."

Quinn tried to understand Santana's logic. "Wait. You want hardwood floors so we don't have to worry about spillage, but you don't want them in the bedrooms? Isn't that backwards logic?"

"Food spillage. I have never once seen you eat anything in bed…other than me; I think we can do without the hardwoods in the bedroom, besides it gets too cold here in the winter to not have carpet in some form. Do you have a problem with hardwoods?"

Quinn shrugged. "I like hardwood fine, just not when they get all scuffed up." She gave it some more thought. "But I also don't like how carpet starts to look dingy after a while either."

"That's only if you don't take care of them."

"I suppose as long as _you_ clean it regularly, it should be okay."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you did such a fine job when you took care of both of our places and, let's be honest: your cooking kind of sucks. So I figure you can clean and take care of the outside chores, I'll cook and be on maintenance and repair detail."

"It sounds like you've been thinking about this," Santana accused. "Who's staying home with the kids then?"

Santana watched as Quinn paused, then actually thought about it. Santana knew that her mind was going to her upbringing, of the 'Fabray Woman' model of what a wife and mother should be. The kind of woman who dressed up for dinner, and always had a spatula in one hand and a cognac in the other. "You," Quinn answered, blinking herself back to the present.

Santana merely shrugged in return. "And my cooking doesn't suck."

"No, you're right, that would be an improvement."

Santana folded her arms over her chest, pouting. "Fine. No more Saturday breakfasts for you."

Quinn met her at her own game. "But you promised!"

"That was before you insulted my cooking."

"I told you, I like your breakfasts fine, but you only seem to know like three and a half non-vegetarian dinner dishes, and a girl needs a little variety. And meat." Santana folded her arms over her chest. "Ah, San, don't pout," Quinn pleaded, sticking out her own lip. "You don't even _like _to cook."

"I like cooking for you," she huffed.

Quinn kissed her pout. "I like you cooking for me, too. But we both know that you buy deli food and try to pass it off as your own cooking on your nights to cook." Inwardly, Santana agreed, but she wasn't about to give in so easily. "I don't think that cooking and repair work is an even trade for me doing all of the cleaning _and_ the outside chores _plus_ taking care of your babies."

"Fine, I'll do the laundry, too."

"And we split the dishes."

Quinn attempted a compromise. "How about we do them together?"

Santana had to think about it because it still seemed like she was getting the lion's share. "Only if you're naked while you're doing them."

"There's no way that could possibly be sanitary. That defeats the whole purpose of even washing them."

"Gah, you're no fun."

"You're the one who stopped putting out for me," Quinn quipped. "That should be grounds for divorce right there."

"I'm beginning to think that you only married me because of my goods."

"Goods? Even your mouth has gotten PG rated! Where has my woman gone?"

"Oh, very funny, Fablo. Consider it payback for all the times that you held out on me in high school."

"I thought I was Flopez."

"You were formerly a Fabray, so your now Fab with a little Lo. I was formerly a Lopez, and will be once you just take my name, so I'm a little F and a lot of Lopez."

"Why don't we ever talk about _you_ taking my name?"

Santana shook her head. "We've had this discussion before and we both know how it ends. Lucy Quinn Lopez: hotness, Santana Quintanilla Fabray? Hot mess. Besides, I'm my parents only child. Russell had two little Fabrays. "

"That were both girls. Frannie's last name is now Hanover."

"Not my fault that your sister wasn't more modern."

"There are like a million Lopezes! How many Fabrays do you know? Besides, Fabray comes first in the alphabet so that automatically makes it better."

"I can't even with you sometimes, Fablo. You just don't make sense."

"Okay, _babe_," Quinn mocked. "And me not putting out in high school: your fault."

"How so?"

"If you had pulled your head out of your ass and looked over in my direction, you," she pointed from Santana to herself, "could have been all up and in this. There was that one time, my folks were out of town for the weekend, and I'd just gotten a new swimsuit, and what did you tell me when I said you should come over? That you didn't want to spend the night looking at my chicken legs peeking out of the world's most prude swimsuit."

"You were seriously propositioning me?"

"And that, sweetheart, is why I'm the brains of this operation."

Santana sat back in thought, and Quinn just sat enjoying the moment. Santana idly played with Quinn's fingers. "Could you imagine what we would have been like in high school if we'd actually dated each other?" she said thoughtfully. "Picking songs to sing to each other in Glee…making out in the hallway…you carrying my books."

"Um…no. San, you'd be carrying my books, and walking me to all of my classes."

"Writing me little love notes," Santana went on, ignoring Quinn. "'_All my love, sweetie. Can't wait to ravish you after Cheerios practice'_. Smacking down Finn in the middle of the hallway when he called me out senior year." Santana pantomimed Quinn breaking out the fighting moves on Finn's head.

"That would be me, huh?" Quinn said with a quirked eyebrow.

"Definitely," Santana replied confidently.

Quinn put a finger to her temple. "Yet, you were the one who carried me over the threshold. _And _claim the title of the baddest bitch at McKinley."

"I was definitely that, _and _the hottest piece of ass the world ever did see. Which is why you'd be carrying my books."

"You would have totally been sprung, San," Quinn insisted.

Santana licked Quinn's neck, which caused the woman to squeal. Quinn smacked her. "What is wrong with you?"

Laughing, Santana just shrugged. "God, I don't think that McKinley would still be standing if we'd gotten together back then. But just so's you know, I loved watching your chicken legs."

"Fuck you, San, I don't have chicken legs!"

Santana pulled up the bottom of Quinn's pants, showing off her legs. She traced her calves with her hand, giving an extra squeeze. "I think we should have a dungeon room. You know like a fun room in the basement or something. Ooh, we could be swingers. That could be our thing! You know, once we start again."

"Swingers? You want to have sex with other women and possibly men?"

"No, but I could like flirt and try to pick up pretty girls, and then right when we're like making out or something, you could come in all jealous and possessive she-hulk Quinn, and be like, 'That's my woman, bitch' and then you can spend all night reclaiming your territory, and I can be all like 'Quinn, you're so fucking hot when you're possessive, fuck me'."

Quinn's head tilted to the side and she just watched her wife's face go through the gamut of facial expressions. Santana paused in her actions. "Why're you looking at me like that, Q, it's creepy?"

"You're just so ridiculous. We're not going to have a dungeon room."

"Aw, babe, you don't want to go all Fifty Shades of Gay with me? You'd be really sexy as my bitch."

Quinn's fingers worked their way into Santana's hair, tugging a handful of hair firmly. "Under no circumstances would I be your bitch."

Santana rolled her eyes. "What evs. But you are mine."

Quinn nodded. "I am."

"Add four bedrooms to the list."

"Four?"

"At least. Like if we could find a seven bedroom for the price of a four, you won't find me complaining. Then we could like constantly have visitors coming, and if they stayed too long, we could put on _Let's Get it On, _on repeat, and we could go at it for hours straight until they got the hint. And we should have a dedicated room for TT and Squishy because we both _know _that Mercedes, at least, is going to come to us on their anniversaries and beg us to watch the kid for them."

"TT?"

"It's my new name for the Trouty Tot."

"We're going to need a room for our books."

"I like that. And I want a Victorian." She gave a look at Quinn. "I would really like to have a Victorian, but that is negotiable. With a garden of course."

"Oh, of course. I wouldn't mind a fixer-upper."

"Who's going to do the fixing up?" Santana question, curiously.

"I will."

"You, Q? No offense, babe, but you don't strike me as the fixer-up type. Although…you in a tool belt, with a wrench and hammer, hot!"

"So, while we're on this topic, how much house can we afford?"

Quinn started to pull her laptop to her, but Santana was already calculating in her head. After thinking about it for a few minutes she wrote down three numbers on Quinn's notepad. "You're going to explain that, right?"

"Taking in both of our incomes, the top number is what I think we could get by paying monthly for our mortgage, the second number is a 20% down payment, and the third is a price range for our house."

Quinn looked the number over, then squinted at it, as if that would change it. "We have that for a down payment?"

Santana gave a slow nod. "More, if you got money stashed away in a secret account," she teased. She was just teasing. Quinn had only been out in the working world for 3 years, after a slightly better than crummy internship, and an Ivy League graduate degree that was paid for mostly through a partial scholarship, good faith and credit cards. She was just getting to a place where she could start saving. Still, she was surprised at the number that Santana put down.

"We have that right now?"

"More or less. That's what I anticipate having by February."

Quinn did some quick math. "Why is the monthly payment so high if the amount of house we can afford is, comparatively, low?"

"Because the monthly is what we'll need to pay to pay off a house in six years."

"There's no such thing as a six-year mortgage."

"No," Santana agreed, "but there're fifteen year mortgages and I figure we can pay twice plus each month."

"Six years?"

"I don't want a house payment," Santana explained. "Everyone kind of pretends that a mortgage isn't debt, but it is, and you know if something happens to one of us, we shouldn't have to worry about losing something that we put our heart and souls into because of it, you know? I mean, sure it's not going to get us a mega mansion, but I'd rather the peace of mind."

Quinn got a particular look on her face. "When can we start looking?"

"After Christmas?"

"That'll only give us a month to find something that we like!" Quinn protested. "And really that's only eight days if you think about it."

Santana laughed. "We can't have more than a month if we start in January?"

"No!" Quinn said firmly. "You owe me this, by my birthday, or we're moving into a trailer and you'll just have to live with it."

Santana chuckled because horny Quinn was kind of fun.

"After Thanksgiving, then."

Quinn's expression changed at that word. "About Thanksgiving…" she hedged.

"What _about_ Thanksgiving?" she questioned, uncomfortably.

She shifted uncomfortably. "Okay…just promise to keep an open mind, sweetie, okay?" Santana's face momentarily shifted at the endearment, but she was not to be so easily swayed. "I know it's like our first Thanksgiving now that we're married." And the first Thanksgiving that they've spent together since the first one after they graduated high school. "First Thanksgiving is kind of a Fabray tradition. When a Fabray gets married, for her first Thanksgiving the new bride is supposed to host the family dinner."

"Well, it's a good thing you married a woman. You're all kinds of exiled, right?" Santana's face was so hopeful that Quinn almost hated to break the news to her. "Right?"

"Not…exactly."

"What do you mean by _not exactly?_"

"I thought like you did, too, but Grandmother Fabray called me a little while ago,"

"You have a grandmother?"

"-reminding me of my 'duty', and I can't back out of this."

"No."

"It's a tradition, Santana."

"No,"

"It goes back for more than sixty years."

"No," she said more firmly this time.

"I'll cook you whatever you want," Quinn bartered. Santana considered that for all of a second, but her favorite dish was simply not worth being around…how many Fabrays was she talking about here? It was just mom, dad, and Frannie's family at the wedding. Did Quinn have other family? Santana wondered if they were all blonde, Stepford wives. "Naked."

"It's just going to be Russell, Judy, Frannie, and co. right?"

Quinn gave an eager, placating nod. "Yes. Just mom, dad, Frannie and her family."

"That's it?"

"Well, and Grandmother and Grandfather Fabray."

Santana breathed out. "That's it?"

"And Uncle Chester, and Great Uncle Scott, and my Great Aunt Lucy." Santana looked like she swallowed something unpleasant. "And their families," Quinn added underneath her breath. "But that's all."

"'Oh, but that's all?' That's half the goddamn planet, Luce! What the hell is wrong with your family? We're gay! You married the 'dyke of Lima Ohio!' Don't you remember the scandal back in high school? Aren't your family like the poster children for conservative America?"

"They are, but a tradition is a tradition, and daddy has been going around talking us up to all of the relatives, so really, this is your fault! If you had just let me go on hating him like _I _wanted, it wouldn't even be an issue."

"Did he mention that I'm Mexican too?" she questioned hopefully. "Do they know _that_?"

"Santana!"

"No, Quinn! All signs pointed to your family exiling us. I _can't _be in a room full of Fabray's!"

Quinn started to pout. "Remember when you said that your family was my family now? They're you're family, too. And you don't want to disappoint your family, do you? Do you want them to think that you don't love me? That our marriage isn't real?"

"No…" Something slowly dawned on the very unhappy young woman. "Wait…who are they expecting to be 'the wife'?"

Quinn placed a tender hand on her wife's face, cupping her cheek, and softly stroking it with her thumb. She leaned in to kiss her. Santana pulled away. "Oh hells no. Unh unh…no, no way!"

"Sanny!"

"I can't serve a room full of Fabrays, Quinn!" Santana shrieked. "What do you expect me to do? Dress up in one of your garden dresses with a cardigan, my hair in a bun, and a plastered smile on my face as I sit a pumpkin soufflé on the table, and regale the expectant crowd with tales of how domesticity is the best thing _ever?" _From the look on Quinn's face, that appeared to be exactly what Quinn was expecting Santana to do. "Do you not understand that that's like my worst nightmare…compounded!"

"It's just once."

"Do you know how much therapy I'm going to need? You are asking your gay, part Mexican, part Puerto Rican, possibly Dominican, part black wife to actually serve the whitest family in America!"

"No, I'm asking you to be accommodating to my family, and be the charming, and loving woman I know you to be."

"Quinn…do you realize how much therapy I'm going to need after this? You vowed to love me…if you loved me, you wouldn't ask me to do this for you."

Ha, two could play that game. Quinn's eyes got really big, and round, and large drops formed in her eyes and started to fall. "Oh, please, Fablo. I know what real crying looks like! Cut that out!"

"I didn't think that my family would even except us, but they have, and you said how important you think family is, and I just thought," she sniffed.

Santana shook her head. "I'm not buying it, Quinn!"

Quinn's bottom lip trembled and her breath hitched. Tears fell in rivers. "I just love you so much, San, and I want them to get the chance to love you, too."

Santana gathered Quinn up in her arms, hugging her tightly as she realized that maybe Quinn wasn't faking after all. "Oh, baby, don't cry."

Quinn continued to sob. Santana pulled her closer to her, stroking her back. "Alright, fine, baby. We can spend Thanksgiving with your family."

"I don't want to if you don't want to, S. I don't want to make you."

"You're not. Come on, you know I was going to say yes eventually, anyway…I was just giving you a hard time. I'm sorry. I want to spend Thanksgiving with them."

Quinn sniffled, pulling back to look at Santana's face. "You do."

Santana nodded.

Just as suddenly as it started, the waterworks, the sobbing, the trembling all disappeared, and a smug, satisfied look rested on Quinn's face. "See, now why couldn't we have just done that from the beginning?"

"You evil, diabolical, manipulative bitch Quinn Fabray-Lopez! I can't believe you! You…you cheater!"

"All is fair in love and war."

"I'm not doing it."

"You have to! You said you would. No half-sies, no take backs," Quinn taunted.

"I can't believe I fell for that!"

"Did you forget I was a drama major freshman year?"

"You're gonna owe me big time for this, Q!"

Quinn could concede that. I mean, if she had nightmares of a roomful of Fabrays and she had grown up as one of them… "I promise, I'll help you with as many of the dishes as possible, and for doing this for me, you can have anything you want as your reward."

"Anything?" Santana clarified. "Like you'll dress-up like the naughty Orphan Annie, and let me DP you with you bent over the back rail of our porch?"

Quinn pressed her lips to Santana's ear. "I'll let you tie me up spread eagle to the table, and have me for desert."

Santana shook her head to get the image out of her mind, but for another reason, too. As delicious as that sounded…"No," she said to Quinn's surprise. "As much fun as that would be, Q, I'm not going to do this because of a reward." She got a serious look on her face. "I don't want you to do something for me out of guilt, and I don't want to do things for you because you weasel me into them. Lies, manipulation, and bribes is not how I want things to be between us. That's how we were in high school, and you remember how well that worked for us back then. I will do this for you because you're my wife, and I love you, and you asked me to, not because I expect anything in return.

"Q, I know that you don't expect good things to stay good for very long; I know it's hard for you to believe in them, which is why I'm being so serious about this. I love you, just you. As much as I love watching you walk out of the house in your power suits, I'd love you without the job. If something happens to your back, and you end up back in your wheel chair, or god forbid there is another accident down the road, and you get scarred up and dismembered, I will still love you; I will still want to be with you. I will complain, just like I plan on doing some serious griping to you about this Thanksgiving thing, but I will still be there for you.

"I like that you are beautiful, and that you have a smoking hot bod, and you're aggressive, and smart, but I love you, all parts of you, all of you, and even though we were both joking around, I need you to know and understand that this isn't puppy love. I don't want you to ever doubt that. I made you my wife because that title, and this relationship, it means more than I could possibly express with any other word. That being said, I think we should add back porch to the list because now that that thought's in my head, I can't unwant it. Also, I knew you were faking…I mean come on Fablo. You're not that good of an actress."

Quinn gasped. "I so am! I had the lead in the freshman showcase!"

Santana patted her hand in a way that couldn't be considered as anything other than patronizing. "Alright, baby. And I'm not wearing a dress."

Quinn got a no non-sense look on her face. "You will be wearing a dress, and not one that makes the nuns cry, either."

"What nuns do you know? Nuns don't cry; they slap the devil out of you with their rulers."

"I bet you know a lot about that."

"At least I was always honest, Quinnie. Do you know why I stopped inviting you to confessional with me? I was so convinced you would bring the church down because you would lie that it became self-preservation."

"Really? _You _were worried about _me?_"

"I may be a bad sinner, Q, but I'm honest as hell. You wanted to save face with the priest; I took my penance like a champ. I loved confessing."

Quinn laughed, digging her fingers into her wife's side until she started giggling. "I bet you did, you narcissistic piece of work."

"When God makes you as close to perfect as possible, it would be a sin to not want to spread your appreciation for his work all over! Oooh, that can be our thing!"

Quinn gave a confused tilt of her head. "What, church?"

"Yeah. We can start the cult of Santana Lopez, where we can put this divineness on display, and I can be worshipped as the divine deity that I am."

"Next time you see this bud man, I want to talk to him, because I want whatever it is that you're smoking."

"Ooh, that's it! That's our thing! We can open a dispensary!" Santana reached for Quinn's notepad. "You finish making this place ours, I'm going to get started on this." Quinn watched Santana very carefully draw a marijuana leaf on the notepad, and shook her head. She curled up against her wife, and Santana adjusted so that she could hold her, a smile forming on her lips as she continued to do what she'd been doing.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So, if you decide to watch Los Hombres de Paco because of this story, I highly recommend that when you get to episodes 103 and 104 that you watch those episodes on YouTube and you only watch 'Pepa y Silvia happy ending'. I cannot stress to you how important it is that you do so. I cannot be held responsible for your emotions if you watch those episodes in any other medium. **


	3. Carotene & Chorizo

Santana was in her head as she headed to her locker to take her gun out of its case. Her movements were slow, practiced, her mind on other things as she put the Walther back together. It was only Tuesday, but this was already her second time this week that she was spending her lunch at the shooting range. Without meaning to, she had almost fallen back to her training schedule from back when she was going through training. Intense workouts twice a day, shooting practice, combat training, sifting through databases, going over schematics, searching the dark web, brushing up on her foreign languages. (A huge benefit of living in a city like Boston was that there was no shortage of conversationalist partners for Santana to practice with in several different languages.) By the time February rolled around, Santana was going to have one well defined body for Quinn to ravage. That and she'd probably be running her division of both the GSA and Little, Brown.

"It's Ms. Bond!"

Santana gave the side eye to the guy who was standing on her left. _Oh for the love of all that's holy!_

Without any encouragement the man went on. "So, if you're a bond girl, and a lesbian does that make you _Pussy Galore_?"

Santana checked the magazine to make sure it was empty before loading it. She sighted the target in the distance. "Hal, do you know why lesbians make such great snipers?"

Beside her Hal looked slightly confused. "No, why?"

"Because it's a scientific fact that lesbians have been known to naturally produce and absorb more carotene so on average they have better eye sight than their male counterparts."

"I don't get it…what's carotene?"

Santana fired off a round, hitting her target dead center. She subtly slid the safety back into place. "That means when we shoot, we don't miss. Remember that the next time you want to talk to me about pussy when I have a loaded gun in my hand."

Unsurprisingly, Hal decided to find another stall. On her right, she heard a chuckle and a guy questioned, "Is that true?"

"What lesbians and carotene?" The guy gave a nod. "No, of course not." She gave a cocky sway to her hips. "But me? I don't miss." She followed those words up with a demonstration.

"Nice shooting," he complimented. Santana gave an abrupt nod. "I'm Chandler."

While the high school Santana may have told him to fuck off on general principal, or said something like 'still gay', she instead extended a hand to him. "Santana."

"Ever go hunting?"

"No, and I've never wanted to either. I don't shoot for sport."

"Me either," he said quickly. "Anything I take down, I eat. I want to invite you to come hunting with me and my wife-"

Santana cut him off. "Oh, sorry, Skip, I'm not into that."

He laughed, knowing exactly where her mind had gone to. He had an easy smile. "Come on: I just watched you mentally castrate a guy who made a tasteless joke. Do you really think that I'd proposition you for a threesome? I was thinking deer hunting."

Santana gave him the elevator eye. What was with people who liked to shoot things for fun? And not things…but living things. He could see her judgment.

"You eat cows, don't you? I guarantee a bullet to the head to a free ranging deer is a lot more humane then what they put your burger through. And cleaner, too. Thanksgiving's coming up? Who doesn't want fresh venison?"

Santana could just imagine the look on the face of the Fabrays if she sat a buck on the dinner table in front of the whole clan. Extra points if she was wearing a dress when she did it, too. Let's see them think of her as the 'little wife' after that!

"I'm not a hunter."

Chandler whipped out a business card faster than Santana could blink. "Think about it, and get back to me. Loved to have someone with as keen an eye as you out there with me."

Santana pocketed the card, before changing out her target sheet, and sending a fresh one down the chute.

Santana got so caught up with shooting that she ended up being a few minutes late getting back to work. It was just her luck that Paulianne was waiting for her at her station. She sighed in anticipation of getting chewed out.

"How was your lunch, Lopez?"

"Fabray-Lopez-" Santana said automatically, even if she was about to get chewed out for coming back late. Why this woman couldn't be like a normal upper manager who spent all day in her office emailing, Santana couldn't figure out. "It was good. Sorry about the time."

Paulianne didn't respond, her gaze having been captured by the pictures on Santana's work station at her correction. Like Quinn, she had expanded her photos to include a picture of Phil on her desk. This particular one was of her and him reading to each other. Phil was curled into her lap, with a book spread out in his. He had been reading _Gus & Me, _and Santana was reading_ De Colores_, though you couldn't see her book in the picture_. _Paulianne nodded appreciatively at the photo.

"Is that your son, Santana?" Paulianne questioned with a note of surprise. Santana gave a nod. "He's adorable; he looks like you! What's his name?"

_No clue_, Santana thought wryly. "Philip."

She tensed, preparing herself for personal questions, but the ones Paulianne asked weren't the ones she was expecting. "Did he like _Gus & Me_?"

She nodded, giving a small smile. "He wanted me to buy him a guitar after we read it." Oddly, even though the book was about a boy and his grandfather, it hadn't caused Phil to ask questions about either her or Hazel's parents. Phil had always seemed to accept that he lived in a sort of vacuum.

"Did you get him one?"

"Get him…," she remembered the statement that had prompted the questions. "No. We told him he'd have to wait a few years."

"Did he have much trouble reading it?"

Santana shook her head. "He had trouble with a few words, but no big problems."

"How old is he?"

"He's five. He was four in the picture, but he's been reading since he was three and a half."

"Smart kid."

"He's really smart," she agreed. "What's the point of having a mother who works in publishing if you can't even read?"

Paulianne laughed at her joke. Santana hadn't set out to actually teach him to read so young; she was always bringing over books and one day seeing Phil with one of the books in his lap, reciting it from memory, prompted her to try to teach him so that he would still have something of her when she wasn't around.

"Indeed. Do you read him imprints?"

Santana wondered if this was the real purpose of the conversation, but she couldn't see how she could get in trouble for that considering that she read unreleased books to the kids at the Children's Hospital as well. Free market research.

"I do."

"What'd he think about Dupree's book?"

"He loved it! He loves tigers, so a book about a little boy who got to live with them? Loved it."

"How lucky for you that you've got a product tester in-home! Unfortunately my kids have aged out of the demo. They really grow up so fast…" Paulianne seemed to contemplate that for a span of a second. "So! we've gotten back third quarter receipts for _The Tiger Prince, _and our fourth quarter projections are already looking to be above what we expected."

Although Santana could access that information if she ever honestly cared enough to, it was rare for that kind of information to be shared with her. Her department did the layouts and minor marketing; they had nothing to do with the money side of the business. In fact, a lot of what Santana had done for _The Tiger Prince_ had been outside of what she normally did.

"That's good." Santana was sure to keep her voice neutral enough to not fall into the suck up territory, yet remain interested enough to not seem apathetic.

"How would you like to run lead on the next project?"

The words took Santana completely off guard. "Really?"

"Really. I know you gave great sacrifice to see that we had a successful launch. Your dedication to your work is commendable. You managed to impress a few people with your work on the Dupree project, and your past works, so we'd like to see what you can do with a little bit more freedom. Staff meeting is on Monday. Do you think that you'll be able to put together a presentation by then?"

It wasn't really a question you could answer 'no' to, no matter how much work just landed on Santana's desk. "I can."

"Good."

Paulianne stalked off, and for once to Santana it didn't seem like she was carrying an inner grudge for her when she did so. She took a moment to bask in the fact that she was the project head on her first ever book launch, before she started to get to work on her upcoming presentation.

Santana left work at 3:00. It was an hour earlier than she normally did on Tuesdays, but she'd finished up early at the gym this morning so she'd gone in earlier than normal, and she knew she'd be working later hours the rest of this week so she figured she might as well take the time now. This morning she had every intention of coming home from work and practicing one or two of the Fabray family recipes when she got home, but that all went out the door in favor of alcohol and video games. All during the car ride home, she had fantasies of her grabbing an ice cold beer, stripping out of her work clothes, and lounging in front of her game system being stupid and mindless with Puck. Besides…it had been so long since she'd donned her rain warrior outfit…

She had to dig through the closet to find her beloved outfit, and finding the sword took even longer. Most of her gaming software she had left packed up, deciding that she could do without it for a couple of months, along with most of her other stuff. Her apartment had hardly been big enough to fit in all her stuff, and now that she was combining with Quinn, there was even less space. So Santana had been doing without a lot; marriage was about sacrifice, she reminded herself every time she had to get something out of storage.

Before logging in, Santana stopped by the kitchen, already tasting the salt, grease, and cheese combination of her favorite snack food, coupled with the yeastiness coolness of her alcohol. Instead of a nice red box of Sunshine Cheez-It snack crackers sitting front and prominent on the eye level shelf, there was an orange and white box of Trader Joe's Cheddar Cheese Squares. To make matters worse, when she opened the fridge, instead of finding her trusty after work beer there (or even a decent trade beer), there was a six pack of some golden apple crap. "Like, what the hell…?" Santana demanded. The only thing stopping her from firing off a text to Quinn to let her know her displeasure about her switching Santana's beer without permission was that it would let Quinn know that she'd gotten off work an hour earlier than usual. And was drinking beer at 3:30 in the afternoon.

"Oh, but we will have words once you bring your sexy ass home, Quinn Fabray-Lopez," Santana promised the air. A woman's beer was sacred, and as many times as Santana went on about how the only thing that was a Cheez-It was a Cheez-It Quinn not getting the right snack had to be on purpose.

"Quinn knows I don't drink this shit," she mumbled, grabbing two bottles of the hard cider. She rolled her eyes just at the thought.

Puck was already waiting for her when she signed in. "Flopez! I thought I lost you!"

"Not quite yet. I hope you've told Quinn enough times that you love her, though."

"Why's that?"

"Cause I'm going to kill her when she gets home."

Puck chuckled. "Ha. It was only a matter of time. But what'd she do?"

"She replaced my Sam Adams with some damn Strongbow. Have you even heard of that shit before? And she refuses flat out refuses to buy my Cheez-Its! She went shopping, and instead of not buying the Trader Joe's brand, and just telling me so I can just pick up a box , she bought the TJ version _knowing_ that I hate the crap! It's cause I didn't go grocery shopping with her. She does this whenever she goes shopping alone, which is completely bullshit because I _always _ get everything on her freaking list when I go by myself. And I mean everything. Including her damn organic gourmet paprika and Cayenne pepper."

She was aware that Puck was laughing at her.

"Welcome to marriage, bro."

Santana rolled her eyes. "In case you forgot, _bro_, I've been married longer than you."

"By like two weeks! Me and Shells have been living together longer than you have, so I got this head start on the whole cohabitation thing, which reminds me…how's that working out for you?"

"Q and I were living together since we've been married. Really, since I popped the question."

"Yeah, but you both had your own places, and now you don't."

"It's nice coming home to the same place every day, but I miss half of my stuff. We're going to start looking at houses just as soon as Thanksgiving is over, though, so it's only for a little while. Actually, our real estate agent wants us to look at a house the Monday before Thanksgiving, and then we'll see from there. We made a list," she added as an afterthought.

"Going to check it twice?" he teased. "You're a good one, Flopez, cause I don't envy you having to go house hunting with Quinn! Lucky for me, Shells is as low maintenance as they come. Sort of."

"Ah, Quinn's not so bad. So, are we doing this or what? I'm in a kick butt mood."

Puck gave a grunt of assent, and they started the game. The level that they were on was like a perfect level. Since the censor was on, it was the kind of level that required a lot of physical activity: running, jumping, ducking plus plenty of sword action. The sword was probably the best purchase Santana had ever made, because it made a cool whishing sound on the game when she beheaded certain creatures, and it lit up, and seriously just looked awesome. She looked fierce, too, because she was dressed from head to toe, war paint make up included. The only unfortunate thing was that whenever she put on her costume (or thought about it) she got turned on, which made all of the physicality of the whole thing a little uncomfortable.

She and Puck were making good headway on their quest when she was thrown off by a loud, unfamiliar knock. All of the people who mattered each had their own distinctive knocking style. Santana gave a confused look at the door. Was Quinn expecting a package or something? But no, those were supposed to be left downstairs at the desk during the day time. "Timeout, Puck, someone's on the door."

"Dope. I'm goinna grab a beer."

"No, you're like supposed to stay and listen to make sure that I'm not being killed, or something."

He snorted. "Dude, I feel bad for anyone stupid enough to try and kill you. Getting a beer. Don't die or anything."

"You suck as a friend, just want you to know," Santana muttered, hoping that it really was just like a package or something, because if it wasn't she was screwed. She checked the peep hole before she opened the door, but she wasn't certain she was seeing who she thought she was seeing until she opened the door and was greeted by blonde hair and big lips.

"Oh hell no," Santana said, slamming the door in the face of her guest.

"Santana?" was heard muffled through the door.

Santana sighed, opening it up again, but only because Quinn was certain to say something to her if she didn't. She wasn't about to be hospitable, though. "No, guppy lips. We made a deal when I let you marry my girl that you don't get to hang out here unless Mercedes is with you."

Sam held up the cardboard pizza he carried along with a DVD as if they were peace offerings. Curiously, she read the title: _Shaun of the Dead_.

Sam seized on her moment of hesitation. His eyes took in her appearance. "Hey cool, Santana, I didn't know you played _Knights of Adventure!" _Sam looked over her costume, blushing, and it was then that she remembered that she had donned her rain warrior outfit. The one that had an exposed chest that was hardly covered by her bra with a belt that went diagonally across her upper abdomen. Santana quickly went to collect her discarded shirt and pulled it angrily down over her torso.

"What are you doing here?" Santana demanded. "Did something happen to Mercedes?!"

Sam stepped into their apartment. "Um…no. Why would you ask if something happened to Mercy?"

"Because you are standing here in my apartment."

Sam looked over said apartment, taking it in. Santana tried to remember if he had ever been inside before.

"Oh, yeah, I just came over to see if we could hang."

She stared at him without blinking for a full minute. "If we could _what_?"

"Hang. Puck said that you two gamed together all the time, and since I game I figured…"

She cut him off. "You figured wrong, Lips."

Ignoring Santana's outrage, Sam took a seat on the love seat. Santana balked at the sight of this. "W-what're you doing? The door is that way." She pointed, as if she expected that to change anything. She swore that if he actually touched her game she would kill him; even if it would make her wife really, really mad at her, and leave the TroutyTot without a daddy.

He appeared to be getting comfortable. Santana could tell that he wanted to grab a slice of pizza, but wouldn't before Santana relented. "One game and I'll leave."

It was a battle for her to tamp down on her emotions. "Puck and I are playing. We're in the middle of a mission!"

"So, I'll watch."

"Or…you'll get out!"

"That's kind of harsh, bro" he declared.

"I'm not a bro."

"Well, duh, Santana. Obviously. I just meant that in solidarity, you know. You've got a wife, I've got a wife. We're hanging out."

"No, we are not hanging out," she said fiercely. "There are many things that I have done and will do since I got married, but this is not in the contract."

"But I brought you pizza." He pointed, in case she forget. Santana glowered, and then glowered some more when Sam didn't seem fazed by the scathing look that she was giving him. When did her scowl break?

And damn it if the pizza didn't smell like heaven. "And that means what?"

"You still alive over there, Flopez? I'm back."

"Yeah, no thanks to you!"

"Who's at the door?"

"Sam Evans," she answered, saying his full name.

"Hey, tell him 'congrats' and apologize for me. I couldn't get leave."

She started to relay Puck's words until she realized what she was doing and stopped. "I'm not a damn relay service. Sam's just about to leave, so you can call him and tell him yourself."

"Why am I leaving?" Sam questioned. "I thought we were about to dig into this pie."

"Puck, give me a second okay?" Santana muted the headset. She was prepping herself to go into this spiel, but Sam stopped her.

"Look, I just need some place to hang out for a few hours, and I knew you'd be home. We don't have to talk or anything. I just need a little space from Mercy, for like an hour or so, and you guys are the only ones I know out here."

"You're here because you're trying to hide from your wife?" Which, she totally understood that. But as a woman, that was so not cool. Mercedes was pregnant.

Sam didn't look particularly pleased with himself. "I love her, but pregnant Mercedes is worse than Mercedes on her period with the mood swings, and…I just need a little time away."

"She's that way because she's carrying _your_ spawn!"

Sam threw his hands up in the air. "I _know_, okay! I just…needed a break."

"What does she think you're doing right now?"

"Out looking for a job, but don't tell her, please," he pleaded. "I know you don't like me for whatever reason, and that's fine, but just cause you don't like me, doesn't mean that you have to be so rude about it. If you needed just to hang, I wouldn't kick you out, and I don't even get why you don't like me in the first place."

"You don't know why I don't like you?"

He shook his head. "I really don't, Santana. There's no basis for it. I'm a good guy. I was a good boyfriend to you even though you were just using me. Actually, I was a good boyfriend to all of your friends-"

"Yes, that's right, _all_ of them. You kind of made your rounds, didn't you?"

"Who didn't in Glee? You, Quinn, and Rachel all dated or had sex with both Finn and Puck. Mercedes dated Puck, too. Hell the only one who didn't date Puck was Finn and Kurt, and I'm not so sure that that didn't happen."

Santana bit back the urge to laugh, because she wouldn't be surprised if Puck ever told her that he'd gotten with a dude before.

"Even though you were mean and insulting, I've still been a good friend to you. When someone we loved needed help, I asked for it from you even though I knew it wouldn't help me, and would raise you up in Brittany's eyes. I've even defended you, even after you came out with that horrible song, so please tell me what I did to earn your ire?"

Did Trouty just say 'ire'. "Hey, that song was brilliant! You know what you did? You put Cheerios on the floor for Brittany to eat! And you married her!"

"Fake married her! And is that what this is about? Brittany? You're going to hold a grudge against me because I started dating the girl that you broke up with? Does that even make sense when you say it in your head? If everyone in Glee acted like you're acting right now, none of us would even still be talking to each other anymore!

"And don't you think that it's a little bit immature that you don't like me because of my relationship with Brittany when you're married to _Quinn_? Brittany's not your wife, or your girlfriend, so the fact that you still hate me for that just doesn't make sense! Maybe my gestures didn't make sense to you, but Brittany got it, and that's all that matters because she was the one that the gesture was for in the first place! You and Quinn were complete bitches to each other all throughout high school, and some of college, and yet you don't see any one of us refusing to be friends with either of you because of it."

Well, when it gets put that way. Santana didn't really dislike, dislike Sam. She had told Mercedes on more than one occasion that the two of them needed to work their shit out because she always thought they were perfect for each other…she just didn't really want to be friends with him. She didn't want to have to add him to her life (the list was getting pretty full as it was). She didn't really have a reason other than that by now her dislike was pretty much out of tradition. He was her wife's best friend's (oh who was she kidding, Mercedes was one of her best friends too) husband, so at the least she should tolerate him. And he was a good guy; had been a good guy with and to the people that she loved. And all of that stuff was so very long ago. And shit, Brittany had eaten a snickers bar from a litter box so the Cheerios on the floor was a step up.

"Pepperoni?" she demanded.

An eager grin quickly took over Sam's face. She could see, slightly, how it could be endearing. It was like having a 6'0 puppy. "Chorizo, jalapeno and salsa."

Santana winced. Damn.

"Alright, you can stay."

If possible the smile grew, and he instantly reached into the box to grab a slice. Santana chewed through her own before unmuting her headset. "Still there, Puck?"

"Roger that. I haven't gotten a call from Sam yet, so he must still be there, hunh?"

"Shut up," Santana hissed.

"That's a yup. You want to just call it?"

"Hell, no. This is the only day this week I can get on the game!"

But Santana and Puck did end up calling the game less than half an hour later because Sam was looking like a lost puppy, and Santana did have a heart.

"So how's the Diva and the TroutyTot?" she questioned, as she was shutting off the game. "Still cooking?"

She went to put on a t-shirt while Sam thought it over. When she came back she really looked at him. He was looking a bit on the drawn side. She could see stress markers a mile away.

"Yeah…our little bean's still cooking." He gave the dopiest smile, one reminiscent of Finn. "This morning, I wake up with my arm around Mercedes waist, and I-I couldn't help but smile because…this is real. I woke up from a dream, yet it's real, and we're married. She's my wife. She has my name, and we're about to have a kid. Like a living, breathing …thing! I heard its heart beat. It's real, and it's mine, you know? Like we did that!"

Santana was very careful to school her features. "But then it hit me: I'm about to be a dad! In May. That's only six months from now! And I'm going to be someone's dad. How do you…how do you wrap your head around it?"

It was purely rhetorical; Santana knew that Sam wasn't expecting her to answer, but she couldn't stop herself from answering him anyway. "You don't. Until you actually hold them, you can't wrap your head around it. But then that first time…the first time you hold them, actually hold them in your arms, and they look up at you, and even though they can't see you, they know you're you. And that moment that you realize that this little miracle in your hands trust you without question, you know that you'll do everything that you can for them. And then it just kind of makes sense."

"What if I mess up?"

Santana could see how that particular thought had been troubling him. "You will," Santana assured him. "You're going to mess up, and you're not going to do the right thing, because you're not perfect, and no one does parenthood without messing up. So you have to get over that right now. You will drop your child, at least once. You will probably drop your phone on them. You're going to get upset with them, and lose your temper because there'll be days that they never seem to stop crying no matter what you do. You may miss feeding them a meal or two, and all of that is okay, Sam. It happens."

Santana was aware of the look Sam was giving her, a look that was curious, surprised, but that showed he was listening raptly. "You're not going to have the perfect kid," (although Phil came pretty close to it), "and you're not going to be the perfect parent, because there's no such thing. But as long as you love them, and you raise them to be as kind and considerate as their parents are, you're going to be alright. You're going to be a good dad, Sam."

Silence fell after Santana's pronouncement as they both sat and contemplated her words. "Thank you, Santana."

She grimaced, "Don't mention it. I mean that seriously. Don't mention it."


	4. Life, the Universe, & Everything

Santana didn't allow herself to fill up on pizza because Quinn would be home soon, and for reasons that Santana couldn't fathom, her wife still didn't see pizza as an acceptable dinner time meal more than once a month. So she allowed herself a slice and a half, and she and Sam watched two episodes of _Arrow_ before Santana decided to go back to her original plan of working on Quinn's family recipes.

Since Sam was still around, and didn't seem about to leave, Santana made him her sous-chef. Remarkably, when she told him to blanch the pearl onions to make them easier to peel, she didn't actually have to explain to him what that meant. They managed to work silently for a half hour before Sam felt compelled to speak.

"Why are we cooking Thanksgiving food for dinner if Thanksgiving isn't for another two weeks?"

Santana sliced too hard through the granny smith apple she was cutting. "Because Quinn and I are spending Thanksgiving with the Fabray clan and we're supposed to be hosting, which somehow means that I'm cooking while Quinn gets to sit around with the men and discuss football…" she paused, pointing her chef's knife at Sam. "Between me and Quinn, who would you say is more 'butch'?"

Sam looked nervously at the large knife. "What do you mean?"

"Like between the two of us who would you say is more girly?"

"You're both pretty girly," Sam answered. He actually looked her over, but not like in a creepy way. "Like all girl. Completely."

Santana rolled her eyes. "No, like I mean, which one of us would you say is more," she thought about a way to get her point across, "like…okay, so you know how…on _Two and a Half Men_ when Ashton and Alan were pretending to be married, and Alan was like the woman, and Ashton was like the man, with me and Quinn who would you say is like…the man?"

Inwardly she was snarling at herself, because what the hell was she even saying?

"But you're _both_ women."

"Yeah, but which one of us is less womanly?" She should have asked Puck. Actually, she shouldn't be having this conversation, but really all she wanted to hear Sam say was that of the two of them, Quinn should completely be the one in the kitchen while Santana sat around talking about the game, or what not. She was _not _the "little woman". So what if she let Quinn be the outside spoon? That was just because Quinn was taller...and Santana might like to be held sometimes. And yeah, Quinn might sleep closer to the door, but that was only for now. Santana had moved into Quinn's place, and into Quinn's bed, but once they got _their_ place, and _their_ bed, she'd be back on the left where she belonged. And if bullets were flying, Santana would definitely be the one who would jump in front of one for Quinn. That was a given.

"Okay, I'm confused because when I said that there were a man and a woman in every relationship, even the gay ones, Mercedes smacked me upside my head, so I'm not sure what you're asking."

"If you had to picture one of us being in the kitchen cooking and the other doing the quote unquote manly Thanksgiving things like watching football and whatever the hell men do while the women are cooking, would you picture me doing it, or Quinn? I don't even know if Quinn even knows the rules of football, which is really sad since she used to be a cheerleader."

Sam suddenly looked intensely relieved. "Wait, so you're asking which one of you should be the one cooking?"

"Yes!"

"Oh!" He looked like a complex math problem had just been solved for him. "You."

Santana frowned. "Why me?"

"Because Quinn doesn't cook," he said simply. He went back to the task he had been set with, not realizing that that wasn't the end of the conversation.

"What do you mean she doesn't cook? She cooks all the time."

He shook his head. "No, she cooks for you. She doesn't cook for anyone else. She has like this fear of public cooking or something. It's kind of weird."

"She…what?"

"Yeah, I totally didn't even know that it was a thing, but for some reason cooking for other people like really stresses Quinn out. Like really. She gets all nervous, and starts itching, and gets hives. She's all like awrgh!" Santana startled at the sound Sam made, something that sounded a lot like a bird dying. He scratched his ear, and puffed out his cheeks. "Awrgh!" He looked expectant. Santana looked at him as if he were suffering from a mental illness. "Will Smith? _Hitch_…?" he shrugged. "So… Quinn doesn't like to cook."

"How do you know this and I don't?"

"Remember when Quinn was helping me out?" Santana nodded. "Well we were supposed to be making cookies for a bake sale, and she was helping Stacy, but she started to like freak out, but like Quinn freak out, so she tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, and she excused herself, and I asked, and yeah."

Santana thought over Sam's words, thinking about how many times Quinn had cooked, willingly, eagerly even, for her. It made her feel warm that here was one more thing, one more way she got to experience her wife that no one else did. With Sam's information she was more willing to do the Fabray family dinner, with slightly less complaining, which made her wonder if Quinn had planted him over here with this story. She tried to think of past incidences of Quinn cooking. If Judy had trained her to be Ms. Suzy Homemaker wouldn't that have included being able to cook as well?

Why couldn't Quinn just tell her that, though?

Santana was unaware of Sam studying her until she looked up and caught his eye. "What are you staring at Lisa Rinna?"

He gave a slight shake of his head in an 'Oh Santana' way. "You two, I don't get you. Why do you guys still get surprised when you find out how much you love each other when it's obvious to everyone else, but you?"

"There's not much room for you to talk. Who _just _got married to Mercedes?"

"Yeah, but I never doubted what I felt for my girl, or what she felt for me. I've always known that we love each other though. We just had to wait for our right moment. You and her? It's like neither of you expect love or think that you deserve it, or it's something you should have. You're as abrasive as a Brillo pad, and you have the _strangest _way of expressing your appreciation for people, but you're good people's Santana."

Santana scowled because no…just no. "No shit, I know this. Are you sure it's Mercedes that's full of pregnancy hormones and not you?"

Sam just shook his head, and went back to what he was doing.

* * *

><p>By the time Quinn made it home, Santana was alone in a fairly cleaned kitchen, thanks in large part to Sam who ran a very skillful rag over the counters which may have earned him a few extra points in Santana's book. Like not enough for him to call him up for company, but enough so she wasn't going to just slam the door in his face the next time he stopped by…as long as it was a couple of months before he felt the need to stop by again. Or at least a couple of weeks. She was just putting the finishing touches on the food that she was cooking, when the front door opened. The words were almost instantaneous, "San, I'm h…oh, God, that smells so good!"<p>

Quinn's nose led her into the kitchen where Santana was still standing at the stove. Hands slid around Santana's waist. "What'd you cook?"

Santana sank into her wife's embrace. "Try this?" Santana blew on the contents of the spoon before she brought the blood red concoction up to Quinn's lips. Quinn's tongue poked out for a second, giving a hesitant taste before her mouth wrapped around the entire spoon. "Oh my god, what is that?"

"I took your Grandma's cranberry sauce recipe and made a cranberry orange chutney with it."

Quinn opened her mouth for another taste. "That is so good, sweetie, like really, really good." Quinn held the mouthful in her mouth trying to dissect it completely, sifting through the layers. "What am I tasting?"

"The ginger?"

"No, the bitter sweet thing that's underlining everything."

"Granny smith apple," Santana said proudly. "I boiled a few quarters and then finely cut up some more to give it some added texture."

"Well that, that's a keeper."

"Yea, what can I say, I'm magic."

Quinn pressed a kiss to the back of her wife's neck. "I know. I might just have to keep you around, after all."

"Are you stealing my lines now?"

She felt Quinn's laughter. Santana swung her arm around to put an arm around Quinn. She placed a kiss on her forehead. "How was your day, babe?"

"Ugh," Quinn sighed.

"Was it that bad?"

"I'll be _so _happy when this Suffolk Fidelity account gets put to bed. Talk about a company who was doing some creative accounting. What about yours?"

"I was giving homework this weekend." Santana decided to leave it at that. She wasn't going to make a big deal out of being a project lead until it was over.

Quinn frowned slightly. "Does that mean that you're going to be going into the office this weekend?"

"No, I can work from home for most of it. Besides, if I stay late for the next couple of days, I shouldn't have to."

"Well good," Quinn said, giving her wife an extra hard squeeze. Upon feeling something _off_ beneath Santana's shirt, she hugged her again feeling the band of her wife's costume. Quinn spun her around so that they were facing each other. With a curious glance, she lifted the bottom of the t-shirt, just now noticing the bottom half of Santana's warrior outfit, and seeing that her face was painted. "You and Noah were on the game?"

Santana nodded. "Yep."

"And you dressed up?"

Santana nodded eagerly, watching the expression on Quinn's face change. She wasn't sure if Quinn's thumb running up and down her arm was subconscious or intentional. Quinn plucked at the fabric covering Santana's chest. "What's with the t-shirt?"

"I had company show up unexpectedly and I had to throw something on." She decided not to mention that said company was Sam for no other reason than she didn't feel like hearing Quinn make a big deal about them being civil to each other, or even worse, try to convince Santana that she should try to spend more time with the boy in the future.

Quinn's fingers made their way under the shirt, teasing both the skin of her stomach, and the strap on the costume. She tugged on the strap sharply, bringing Santana closer to her, their lips sealing together. "You know how I feel about your ceremonial garb."

Santana smiled into the kiss. She winked. "I know."

Quinn buried her hands beneath the shirt, pushing it up off of Santana's shoulders. She took a moment just to admire her wife's nearly naked form, amused when she noticed that the bra matched the rest of the outfit which meant that at some point Santana had had to change it, because that wasn't the same one she'd been wearing earlier.

"A Kari warrior is uniform in all aspects of dress."

Quinn's lips curled. "Oh yeah, what else is a Kari warrior?"

She laid fluttering kisses on Santana's neck. "Mmm…well…strong," she answered, flexing even while Quinn continued to kiss her. "Fearless."

Quinn used her teeth to gently tug at the skin, tracing over the path her teeth took with her tongue. "Sexy…I think that's like a given."

"Definitely," Quinn agreed.

Her hands worked their way around Santana's back, pausing at the back of the clasp to see if Santana would pose an objection, and when she didn't she continued with what she was doing. Quinn kissed the spot where Santana's bra rested on her shoulders as she removed the bra straps off of them.

"Loyal."

Quinn did pause at that word, preventing Santana from saying anything else for a few minutes as she returned to her wife's lips. "I can still taste the sauce on you," Santana said with a laugh. When Quinn opened her mouth even the slightest, perhaps to question what Santana was about to say, Santana stuck her tongue in the other woman's mouth, taking over the kiss.

"You forgot the greatest feature of a Kari warrior," Santana said into Quinn's lips. She flipped them so Quinn's back was the one against the stove. "We're always in control." She palmed a handful of Quinn's ass, lifting her up, and sitting her on the counter. "Completely." She grew more forceful with the kiss as she started to unbutton Quinn's blouse. She had to momentarily stop because Quinn had worn an annoying sweater vest covering the shirt, and she had to pull away to lift the thing over Quinn's head. The fabric was discarded on the kitchen floor, but instead of Santana going back to kissing Quinn, she drew back. She took in the sight of Quinn's heaving chest, as she attempted to calm her breathing, her breast pushing against the purple bra that Quinn had chosen to put on today, a color that made her look even paler than usual.

Her eyes rose in increments until they met with those familiar multi-color orbs that were more golden than green at the moment. Almost lazily, perhaps reverently, Santana undid the clips that kept her wife's hair from flowing free, and she watched it cascade down her head. She was aware of Quinn watching her, and waiting, surprisingly patient, probably wondering what Santana was going to do. She raised a questioning hand to place against the darker haired woman's cheek. Santana turned her head to place kisses on the fingers, soft and gentle, until without warning she sucked the longest of them into her mouth, which produced a moan from Quinn's lips. She sucked lewdly, calling to mind all the times that Quinn had been sprawled on her back with Santana tucked between her legs, her tongue working wonders until she came numerous times, and her legs turned to jelly.

The feeling of Santana's mouth around her was so good, that Quinn didn't even realize that Santana had semi-removed her bra and shirt until she felt Santana's hands on her bare breasts. Santana sucked another finger, her middle, into her mouth, making sure to pay close attention to the space in-between the fingers. Her teeth grazed them every now and then because she knew how much Quinn liked that, and judging by the noises that Quinn was currently making, she was doing something right.

With a pop, Santana surrendered Quinn's fingers only to move further south. Quinn shook her shirt and bra off her arm. She placed kisses to the top of Santana's head, as Santana's thumbs found her nipples and her hands cupped her breast pushing them up. Moments later her longue was lathing affection on them. Quinn's resolve weakened and her hips started to move, needing more contact from her wife. Santana pushed her body further in between her legs, rotating her hips to provide some friction. She didn't otherwise indicate that she had any intention of going any further south than Quinn's breast, so after several minutes of Santana's tongue showing affection on Quinn's nipples, (and with images in Quinn's head of what that tongue could do in other places), Quinn slipped her hand beneath the waistband of her skirt and underwear.

She was unsurprised to find that she was practically drenched. She pressed the fingers that Santana had been sucking on into her core, but she didn't move them. She felt Santana's hands move from her breasts, to her ass, pulling Quinn to her, and rotating her hips in a way that pushed her fingers further inside of her. They continued in this way until Quinn felt a familiar sensation building. Santana panted into her neck, and she wanted to ask her wife if she had come, but she didn't. Instead she laughed, because the last time Santana had worn that outfit, they had pretty much dry humped then, too, and then she remembered that Santana had cried afterwards.

"Sweetie?"

"Yeah, babe?" Santana questioned.

"Why d_id _you cry? That one time?" Quinn was certain she already knew the answer to that, but she wanted to hear it anyway. It only made her love her wife even more that Santana didn't need clarification of what she meant. "Because it was just so much, so much good, so much happy, so much everything, in that one moment. I had maybe just had one of the best sexual experiences ever, and it was with you, and we were married, and I realized that this woman that I loved may possibly love me, back. I mean, what else do you do but cry when you realize that you suddenly had everything you ever wanted?"

* * *

><p>The third time Ziggy's back met with the mat he decided to say something. "Want to talk about it?" he breathed out heavily. It took a lot to wind him, but Santana had put him through some serious work outs over the past several weeks, and this day in particular she was really going at it. Although he loved the passion and aggression Santana was bringing to the table, he was also not an entirely spring chicken. If this kept up, he was going to have some serious back problems by the time he was 40. In the words of Santana, 'no me gusta'…though…the perception of chronic pain did have its benefits…<p>

Santana rolled off of him, sitting cross-legged beside him, as he rolled himself up into a sitting position, too. "Nothing to talk about."

"Really? Because as much as I enjoy a good work out, and I really enjoy a good work out, you've been going hard every day for more than a month. I've had to cut back on my naturals to make sure I can keep up with you."

Only Ziggy could say that sentence in that oh so casual way. "You're a federally employed employee. How are you possibly able to 'naturally consume' anything?"

Ziggy gave a serene smile. "Ah, my young, tiny grasshopper. When they ask you about your drug usage on your clearance form, they don't ask because they actually care; they ask because they want to see if you're going to lie. I don't lie."

Santana did a flip to get on her feet and heard her body give a slight groan of protest. She winced, feeling a little old. She fully righted herself and helped Ziggy to his feet. Inwardly she gave a small smile at his own, slight, wince at being righted. Ziggy gave a small sigh, but he didn't hesitate to get in the proper position. They started to circle each other. "Is this sudden physical assault because you're in your head about having your first kill?"

Santana momentarily straightened out, until a disapproving look put her back in her stance. "No."

Ziggy was the first to enter Santana's space. He saw an opening and aimed a punch at her midsection, more to set up the counter attack than because he actually expected it to land. "You fired your revolver the last time you went out into the field. If orders hadn't been to apprehend, would you have aimed a little higher? Taken the kill shot if necessary?"

Santana aimed a kick at Ziggy's head, which he countered. His question reminded her of the interrogation that she had been submitted to a few weeks prior. A similarly worded line of questioning had been posed to her by her moderator. "Your partner was detained, she was being handled," Santana let loose a series of jabs and punches that Ziggy easily volleyed. "There was a gun pointing at her, a gun pointing at you. If you're in that situation again, would you take the shot?"

She landed a punch to the ribcage, and a kick to the shin, that Ziggy merely absorbed. "Are you asking as a friend, or as an agent?"

"Merely curious," Ziggy replied. "It's not something that's easy to do. Take a life."

He caught her off guard with a jab to the body, slipping in a hook as well. It disoriented her for a second or two as her head snapped around violently.

"Have you ever killed anyone?" The next blow Santana landed was a lot more forceful. It took Ziggy a little longer to recover from it, giving Santana time to get in a few more punches and kicks.

"Yes," Ziggy said to her surprise. "Three times." She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't seem inclined to do so. So when he did respond, it took her by surprise. "I was in a kill or be killed situation." Santana thought back to the moment in the warehouse, because it had been on her mind ever since she got back from Arizona.

Santana's legs were swept out from beneath her. Discipline and training was the only thing that prevented her from automatically rolling as soon as she landed, giving Ziggy her back; an instinctual and fatal move. "If it was an emergency situation, to save me or my partner's life, yes I would have taken the shot."

"Would you still?"

That question, in a more cut and dry form had been asked, too. Santana and Bryne's professional relationship was currently being evaluated because Paulson didn't believe that the partnership between them had remained intact after Hazel and Phil went into the program. There were other agents for Santana to work with, and she had worked with other agents in the past, it was just that Bryne had trained her, she worked the best with Bryne, she had always liked Bryne. But while their partnership was in question, they wouldn't be sent back out together, thus the need for the dinners.

It was Santana's turn to end up pinned down on the mat, and after a brief struggle to free herself from the hold Ziggy had on her, she tapped out when she felt her head start to swim from lack of blood flow. This time they decided to both stay down.

"So this new found aggression is about the job?"

Santana tilted her head in a non-committal gesture. She felt how sore her body was, and decided she could be a little more open. "I'm scared," she admitted. "I know I'm not supposed to be scared, but I am."

"Fear is a natural response. It's what keeps us alive. Do you think that you're the only one ever afraid?"

"No."

"Do you think that Bryne's never scared?"

"No. It's just that I'm supposed to be so tough, and I'm supposed to seem like I'm in control, and right now I feel like I lost that."

"Because you were shot?"

"I'm not really freaking out about getting shot as much as I thought I would, you know? In the back of my mind, I always knew that it could happen. And shit, it hurt like a bitch when it did. I guess the weird thing is that I'm more afraid of Quinn being told that I've died than I am of actually dying. If it were to happen, I've done my part in that equation. I'm done. I don't have to be there to deal with what that means. She would. I've never worried about that before. I've never had to worry about that before."

"So this is more about your personal life?"

Santana's brow furrowed as she tried to rationalize her thoughts. "I didn't think that it was. I thought it was about the job, and what went down, and about life in general, but I think I'm mostly just hiding from my wife."

Ziggy waited in that quiet manner of his, one where you didn't really feel that he was waiting for you to talk, but you knew that if you did, he would listen, and probably offer some Zen-like advice, but only if he felt like you needed to hear it. He stretched a little, showing off how incredibly limber he was.

Santana sat staring off at nothing. "We're not having sex-," She nipped slightly at her lip, playing with her lank, sweaty hair. "And I'm used to it fairly frequently, so all of this extra energy is me having the need to exercise it out."

"I know marriage kills sex, but isn't it too early in the marriage for you guys to not be having sex?" Ziggy joked.

"It was a personal choice."

"For how long?"

"How long will I have the need to exercise it out?"

"No, how long have you gone without sex?"

Santana gave him a slight smile. "It's been a few months, and we've still got a few more to go. We've fooled around, like I'm not a martyr, but we haven't done the actual act."

Ziggy didn't seem like he was particularly shocked by such a revelation, which Santana was intensely grateful for because everyone else acted like she announced the end of the world. It was nice having someone not acting like it was the only thing that Santana knew how to do. Part of her desire to keep going with this was that it made her feel good that Quinn was _willing_ to wait for her. She hadn't had too many people in her past willing to do that. Even her and Brittany's relationships seemed to get strained when the sex wasn't frequent.

"Denying oneself pleasure allows for a more intimate examination of oneself," Ziggy tossed out casually bringing Santana way from her thoughts. Santana's eyes remained fixated on the mat she was sitting on. She thought about all of the people who had rested on it before her and wondered how often the gym actually washed them. The thought was slightly more depressing than the conversation at hand. "Self-examination allows us to become more whole human beings, which in turn makes us better partners to our partners." Ziggy gave her a placid look; she wondered if he knew how to get angry. "Is your desire to get more intimate with yourself or your wife?"

"It's both. Me and Quinn have always used sex as a means to not have to communicate with each other. I didn't say 'I love you' because I kissed it into her and expected her to understand that it was true without me having to say it. We would have an argument and have sex instead of saying 'I'm sorry'. When one of us wanted something from the other, instead of asking, we'd fuck. There were times when one of us wanted to confess our feelings, and the other would kiss and fuck the words away, which ultimately did us absolutely no good because later we'd wonder if the other cared about us as much as we cared for them, and it'd leave us angry because we felt alone in our feelings.

"People who aren't able to communicate with each other, relationships that don't have communication in them, they don't last. Communicating through sex is all fine and what not, but what happens when we stop having it down the line? Be it "Lesbian Bed Death" or just because it eventually tapers off, if we never learned how to actually communicate our love and appreciation for the other, what's going to hold us together?"

"Common interests and community property?" he joked.

"What if sex _was_ our common interest? I mean it's not…me and Quinn are so alike it can be kind of scary, but we just…I just kind of threw us into this marriage thing, and we did it before we worked out the things that had hurt us in the past that had kept us from each other. Quinn's been in love with me since high school, and I've been in love with her for nearly 10 years, and it took us until we were already married before we could even say I love you to each other. We missed out on so much because after that one weekend all either of us let us be to the other was fuck buddies."

Ziggy nodded to himself. "I can understand wanting to fix that. It seems like you gave up sex to learn how to communicate with each other, yet you're not communicating these things to your wife."

"I am. I'm being open. I'm telling her I love her, and we're talking things out. I shared with her my heartbreak over what happened with my son. I talk to her about my job. I explain myself a lot more than I have in the past."

"But-,"

"But the big things that have been bothering me lately, it's not something I _can_ talk to her about."

"Job related things?"

"No. That would be easy. It's more personal. Quinn's never been lucky in the love department, and her mom and dad did a number on her growing up, so she's insecure. Like really insecure. Far more than she lets on. If I told her what I'm feeling, no matter how I say it, I know she'll react badly. She won't hear anything after I tell her what's bothering me, and she won't remember anything before it, either. She'll internalize, she'll pull away, she'll beat and bottle herself up, and I'd probably lose her over it."

"What's so big that would do all that?"

Santana thought about going another round with Ziggy just so she wouldn't have to verbally say the thing that she'd been thinking about for so long. Speaking it out loud would mean that she actually believed it, and if that were the case, what was she supposed to do then?

"I don't think that getting married to Quinn was the right thing to do." She felt guilty even saying the words, as if their very utterance was a betrayal to her wife and best friend. She had stood by her wife's side and vowed to love her forever, she had told Quinn, how many times now, that she was the only woman for her, that she would be with her, and stand by her side, and support her, and cherish her? And she did. She really did. She loved Quinn. She was in love with Quinn. But she couldn't shake the feeling that, just like always, she had just powered through without properly thinking things through. The worst thing about it was that this wasn't even something she could talk to Quinn about. Quinn would only hear that Santana was doubting the marriage, and that would be it. Quinn would go to one of two poles, both equally damaging. She could ask for Quinn's reassurance on just about anything, just not this.

She looked over at Ziggy, halfway expecting to see a condemning look on his face, but she never got it. Ziggy didn't comment, either, just waited for her to continue.

"I guess the best way to explain how I'm feeling is to compare it to a toy that you fall in love with in January. You really want it, so you ask your parents to get it for you, and they tell you that if you're really good maybe Santa will bring it to you for Christmas. So you stay on your best behavior for the rest of the year, anxiously waiting for this thing that you're sure you want more than everything else, and finally Christmas comes, and you're _so_ excited."

"Only she's not just that one gift that you wait for, she's every gift for the past 10 years, and suddenly it's in front of you and you can finally open it."

"Are you scared that when you 'open this gift' you're not going to get what you want, or that what you want isn't what you thought you did?"

"In high school I dated my best friend, and I thought she was everything, the world, but I was wrong. She was just my first love. After me and Quinn had sex for the first time, it was like things just clicked, like I suddenly had an answer to a prayer I didn't even realize I was praying, but even then I knew that I had to wait for it to fully be answered, that I couldn't have it right away. But instead of waiting patiently for Christmas, I…I don't know, peeked, I wasn't good. I didn't do what I was supposed to. Or maybe she's just the kind of gift that you're supposed to want, but you're not allowed to have.

"I just feel so _wron_g lately. Like I'm doing everything wrong. I don't know, Zig. People like me and Bryne aren't supposed to get married."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because being with her makes me happy, but being with me may cause her pain."

She looked at Zig in anticipation. "That's the funny thing about love. We love our partner so much that we declare that we would do anything for them, and wouldn't want to ever cause them pain, never taking into consideration that they feel exactly the same way about us. Do you know what I really think?"

"That's why I'm talking to you about this, all wise and knowing Yoda."

Ziggy seemed to be contemplating either some loose skin on his foot or the universe; it was often hard to tell with him. "I think that you suffered a major loss, two really-"

"Two?"

"Your son and the loss of your invincibility. So you have these two big losses, and in the face of that you're subconsciously trying to sabotage the other good things in your life by manifesting problems that aren't there because you have this mistaken belief that it won't hurt as much if you give something up before it can be taken away from you."

That unfortunately sounded too right on. Quinn wasn't the only one who knew how to self sabotage. "Or?"

"Or, like you said, you had to introduce your wife to this big, scary world and you feel bad about it, but you really shouldn't because it's a world that exists whether or not Quinn knows about it, and at least your wife has you to help her navigate it."

Ziggy picked at the skin on his exposed foot. "Honestly, though, I really think you're merely freaking out because in a few days you'll be turning 30, and you're just starting to realize that you've been on this earth for 3 decades, and that's inwardly freaking you out."

Santana was a bit taken aback by this unexpected prognosis because she hadn't thought about her upcoming birthday at all. "You think that all of this is just about me turning 30?" she questioned doubtfully.

"30 is a big life change. It really hits you that college is over and you can't turn back, you start having families, kids, if you've already had kids they're no longer in that baby stage, you don't drink and hang out as much, you find you like being at home more, you're more serious about your job. You're serious about life in general. It can be scary. So can the possibility of facing the unknown. But the universe knows how to take care of itself, and the sooner you learn that, the more at peace you get with life, the universe, and everything. My suggestion to you, smoke a fat one, hug your wife, and curl up in front of the fire, because yeah, things are about to change, but that's just an everyday thing."

He leaned over and planted a kiss on her forehead to her surprise. "Oh, and happy birthday."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So I know I suck when it comes to updating on any sort of timeline, but I'm working on it. Good news though: there will be another update this week! Promise. If I don't update again by Sunday, feel free to spam my inbox with hate mail. I missed uploading Quinn and Santana's first Thanksgiving together in time for Thanksgiving , but I'm definitely going to have their first Christmas in time for Christmas. **


	5. The True Meaning of Christmas

**A/N: So sorry about the timing. As I explained to someone else, I live on the west coast so technically I squeezed this in. Baby had a 24-hour flu thing, which made writing yesterday nearly impossible. On to the update!**

* * *

><p>Friday night found Santana sitting on the couch with Sam Evans, of all people. She had already gone through her upcoming presentation once, and as Sam had nearly fallen asleep listening to it, Santana figured it was pretty close to perfect. Now they had on a movie, <em>The Transporter, <em>which was possibly, in her opinion, the best action flick ever, but she wasn't really watching the movie. Her cell phone was on the coffee table, next to her propped up feet, and she kept glancing at it, or more specifically, the time. It was ticking closer to 7:00, and Quinn was usually home a lot earlier than this on Friday nights. She got off of work at 4:00, and Santana was beginning to worry about where her wife was. Sam was a distraction, but not quite enough.

She gave him a side-ways glance. "Isn't Mercedes going to start wondering where you're disappearing off to?"

As if on cue, Sam's phone went off. As Mercedes ring tone echoed in the apartment, Santana glanced, once again, at her own silent phone, missing Sam's panicked squeak. "It's Mercedes! What do I do?"

"Answer it, genius."

"What do I say?"

"I don't know, but I wouldn't let it go to voice mail."

Sam reluctantly answered his phone. "Uh, hi sweet lady," he said in some imitation of a character Santana had never heard of. Santana had never gotten any of his references, and she couldn't figure out if Sam didn't know that he was that bad, or if he knew and didn't care. "Where am I? Ummm…out?"

Santana rolled her eyes. This poor sap had no concept of how to successfully lie to your spouse. Feeling his lie wasn't sufficient Sam added, "buying…a fish?"

Oh this poor, poor fool. He wasn't going to survive. Santana finally caved and typed out a quick message to her wife saying only two words: **_Home soon?_ **

She realized that Sam had hung up with Mercedes. When she looked back over at him he looked green. "She wants me home right now."

"Uh oh, sounds like someone's in trouble."

"What should I do?"

"Grovel?" Santana suggested.

"Gee, thanks, pal."

"Go down on her?"

Sam appeared to like this idea more. He stood up, switching off the movie. "Hey! I was still watching that!"

"I need a ride."

"Call a cab!"

"Really, Santana? I'm already in hot water with my girl as it is. I would give you a ride."

"It's cold out there!" Santana protested. Santana grunted as she stood up. "Fine! You are really testing me, Evans, and this better not take forever because Quinn's supposed to be home soon." She continued to glower at Sam, but went looking for her keys, her jacket, and a hat. Santana really hated winter and it hadn't even started yet.

There was silence in the car all the way from Quinn's apartment to Mercedes' brownstone. She looked over when Sam's text message alert went off. "'Cedes says that Quinn's with her." Sam alerted her.

Santana frowned. "What's she doing with Mercedes?"

"Mercedes needed Quinn's help with something, apparently," Sam responded.

Until she heard his voice, she wasn't aware that she said the words out loud. _"Well why didn't she text _me_?" _Santana grumped. No, her wife wasn't under any obligation to let her know of her every movement, but if Santana hadn't let Quinn know where she was three hours after she was supposed to be home, Quinn would have been blowing up her phone demanding to know if she was okay, then yelling at her for at least a good 10 minutes letting her know just how worried she'd been, and how Santana should have at least texted.

Santana was able to slide into a spot directly in front of Mercedes' brownstone. "Tell Quinn to come out?"

Sam fired off a text. "She wants you to come inside," he informed her. "She and Mercedes are still working."

Santana groaned loudly, not bothering to hold back her frustration as she got out of the car, into the _cold_, to climb up the stoop, and into the building.

Mercedes' place was actually pretty nice. She had poured what she had earned from her music into buying the building (and her studio) and doing an overhaul on it. There were two apartments on the first floor, and with Sam's help, the second and third floor were being renovated to make one apartment and give them more living space for her new growing family.

Santana liked how it felt warm and inviting from the second you let yourself into the entrance. The paint was bright, but not overwhelming, and there were little touches: a closed in mudroom/mailroom, a bench to take a quick sit down, or to rest your bags on while you searched for your keys, real plants, some artwork. It was a space that no one would be in for more than a few minutes, tops, but it was a small bit of comfort that made it feel like you were coming home. She was sure Mercedes' tenants appreciated the space just as much as she did, and the fact that Mercedes kept the property well maintained, too, was just more of a bonus. If Santana wanted to live near down town, this was the kind of residence that she'd want to live in.

Sam walked past her and up the stairs, practically lumbering in front of her. _Big oaf_, Santana thought unkindly in her head as she followed in his wake. To amuse herself, she thought about Mercedes laying in to him as soon as the door opened, figuring it would be recompense for dragging her along with him in the first place.

Sam unlocked the door, but stopped short of opening it. "You go in first," he instructed.

Santana rolled her eyes. "It's not going to save you any from your wife by delaying. Trust me, I know."

Sam shrugged, and Santana thought he was being ridiculous, but she opened the door anyway. "Pathetic-," was on her tongue, almost spoken when she was hit by the wave of one word said almost in unison from several mouths: "_Surprise!"_ While Santana stood there, flabbergasted, two more words were thrown at her almost in explanation, "Happy Birthday!"

Quinn stepped forward with open arms and a kiss for Santana. She placed a pink plastic birthday crown on her head as well, holding out a matching scepter. "Happy birthday, baby!" Quinn cheered before placing a kiss on Santana's lips. She smiled into her wife's lips, taking an extra second or two longer to give her some additional love. "Were you surprised?"

The moment was momentarily ruined when an arm came down around Santana, followed by a matching one landing on Quinn's shoulders. "She was totally surprised," Sam said. "She actually thought that I was hiding from you, Mercy."

"He knows better than that," she asserted.

There were a few guys from work, Dex and Nichols, and a girl from the secretary pool, Hannah, She thought as well as a couple from Quinn's apartment that they were friendly with, and, of course,-

"30," Kurt said with an upturn of his perpetual baby face. "Is that a wrinkle I see?"

"Don't even joke," Santana said sternly. Because her birthday was near the end of the year (and she started school later than everyone else) Santana was the first among her peers to turn 30. This meant she was subjected to their aging taunts as the rest of them still had a couple of months before they turned 'over the baby hill' as Blaine said. Rachel was unsurprising quietly, because as her own 30th lurked just around the corner, anything she said would be just thrown back in her face in a couple of days.

Santana couldn't help smiling at the display, all there to see her, and she couldn't help showing Quinn her appreciation by cornering her and placing kisses on her lips every chance she got. She was even happy to see that Rachel was there.

The best part of the night was when Mercedes played the _Cha Cha Slide_, and they got a real view of just how old they were getting. When Quinn felt herself getting slightly winded she leaned against her wife. "'Member when I was a cheerleader," she huffed. "And we were breezing through Sue's two a days?"

Santana laughed, because she was pretty much doing those now, and so this dancing was a cake walk, but the same couldn't be said for everyone else, and of course Brittany danced around all of them, making them all look amateurish. Tamara only danced when her wife was present (with very good reason, she kind of danced slightly better than Finn when she was alone), but when she danced with Brittany, she couldn't manage to hide just how happy doing so made her. Santana caught herself watching them for a few minutes, and thought about how it was nice that they had all were all doing well; that they had all managed to find someone who could complete them.

Tamara found someone who could teach her how to dance, Brittany found someone who could teach her all new steps. Mercedes found someone who wouldn't run when she pushed, Sam found someone who he could hold on to. And she and Quinn? Quinn had found someone who could hold her together, and Santana found reasons not to fall apart. Quinn caught her eye, and Santana smiled at her, holding her hands out to entice her to dance.

Hours later, the party was dying down, and people were starting to leave. It wasn't like the kind of party that had dominated her high school and college career. It wasn't the kind where people stuck around until they passed out on whatever flat surface they could find, and woke up with hangovers. There was hardly any alcohol consumed at all. Ziggy was right…her 20s were over.

When no one else but the Glee kids remained, the New Yorkers started for the door as well. "As much as we would love to stay, this one," Kurt nodded at Rachel in case there was any doubt about who he was talking about, "has to be on stage tomorrow. And we promised the baby sitter we'd be back tonight."

"Oh, boo," Santana grunted, but she lined up like everyone else to say good bye. "You be safe driving back."

"And you watch those hips of yours," Kurt returned, driving home one last barb. "Happy Birthday Snixx. Love you guys."

"Call someone when you get home. Actually text all of us!"

"Okay, mother…!"

"Yeah, yeah."

When it was just the six of them, they settled into Mercedes amble seating in the living room, they put on a movie. When they had all settled into a lull, Santana looked around at the three remaining couples. Mercedes and Santana were both in their lovers' arms, while Brittany was stretched out with her head on Tamara's ballooning stomach. Santana nudged Mercedes with her foot.

Mercedes looked up slightly irritated, but her expression quickly evened out. "_Notice something?"_ Santana whispered. Mercedes had to draw her eyes away from the screen as she took in the scene. It took her a minute to figure out what Santana was talking about, but then she smirked, shaking her head as she went back to the movie they were all watching.

"What?" Quinn questioned, not missing the exchange.

"Lima blondes seem to sure love their brown," Mercedes answered, this time not turning away from the TV. In dawned on the blondes in the room what she meant. Sam hugged Mercedes closer to him. "Well I _love_ my chocolate drop," he said at the same time that Quinn said, "I'm not a natural blonde."

Tamara, who had absentmindedly been combing her fingers through Brittany's hair, looked over in confusion. "What's going on?"

Santana merely pointed at herself, Tamara, and Mercedes, then Sam, Brittany, and Quinn, and she instantly got it. "Oh."

"I was saying the blondes in Lima like their browns."

"Or you guys are the ones falling for the blondes," Sam suggested.

"Quinn's not a natural blonde," Santana said immediately.

Tamara looked down on her wife in quiet contemplation. "I never dated a blonde before Brittany." Brittany smiled, shaking hook her hair out. "I never dated any person not of color before Britt; surprised the hell out of my mom."

"You too," Brittany said in jest. "I had to ask you out _three_ times before you finally said yes."

"Really?" Santana blurted. She wasn't the only one who was surprised by this, because most people seemed to have trouble saying no to Brittany. Santana wondered if this was the key to their relationship. She could certainly see how the challenge had probably appealed to her ex.

"The first time she flat out told me no, the second time she told me she'd think about it before telling me no a week later, and the third time was the charm."

"I said yes the _first_ time you asked me to marry you," Tamara said softly.

Brittany smiled happily, "Yes, you did."

Tamara surprisingly spoke up; addressing the crowd at large. "The first time I didn't take her seriously; Brittany was friendly, but she was always very friendly with all of the people on set. And I mostly kept to myself."

"I was constantly inviting you to come out with me. I purposely ran into you. I didn't do that with everyone."

Tamara squeezed her hand.

"The second time we had known each other a little better but I had to think about it; Brittany was far more outgoing then the people I was used to being around. And the final time,"

"She said yes!" Brittany giggled, and Tamara smiled down at her with a warm smile that all who witnessed it were pretty certain they were not meant to see it. Brittany leaned up to peck Tamara on the lips before she placed a kiss on her belly. "Love you, too, Squishy."

It was such an intimate moment that everyone else turned back to the movie to give them privacy.

It was pretty late by the time the movie was over, so they were all pretty much dragging ass to the door. Santana knew that they could stay over if they wanted to, but she wanted home and their bed, so they said their goodnights.

Quinn snuggled into Santana's shoulder as they headed down the stairs to Santana's car. She yawned. "Did you have a good birthday, sweetie?" she questioned sleepily.

"The best one yet," Santana said in answer.

* * *

><p>The rental car came to a stop in front of a semi-familiar looking house. Santana breathed out slowly. "So I guess this is it."<p>

Quinn placed a comforting hand on Santana's neck. "You're being ridiculous. My family's not that bad."

Santana snorted. "Oh, it's too late to try to pretend about that, Barbie."

Neither of them moved to get out of the car. Santana stared at the home in front of them. "What did your dad do? Get the same house just in smaller size?"

Quinn laughed. "I thought the same thing! And he married a Prudence. It's like a match pair: Judy and Prudy."

"But she's not a blonde."

"Surprisingly enough."

Santana turned towards Quinn. "Well…?" she questioned expectantly.

"Well what?"

"If I'm supposed to be playing the doting wifey this weekend, that makes you my gentlewoman, which means you're opening my doors."

Quinn got that 'Why did I marry this woman' look on her face, as she slipped from the car to walk around and open it for her wife. Santana fluttered her eyelashes once she righted herself before throwing a hand over Quinn's shoulder. "Carry me!"

"Get. Off!"

Prudence was there to greet them as soon as Quinn knocked. "Quinn, Santana," she said, cheerfully. "We're so glad that you could make it. Russ is in the library on the phone. Come in! He'll be out in a few minutes."

They exchanged identical glances as they crossed over the threshold, thrown off by the cheerful nature of this woman. She gave the two of them a brief tour of the downstairs. In the living room, Quinn was startled to see that besides a picture of Frannie with her husband and two children, was a picture of her and Santana. "Did you know he put that up?" Quinn whispered to her wife. Santana shook her head.

"No."

Santana gave Quinn a sideways glance, watching as Quinn tried to reconcile the picture to the man she knew her father to be. She couldn't imagine that man having a picture of his gay (bi) daughter and her wife hanging on the wall for anyone to see. After seeing that she needed a moment, so Santana stepped away and followed Prudence out of the room.

Santana wouldn't have minded her own moment because Russell's house was giving her flashbacks to high school. On those rare visits to the Fabray manor, Quinn had had to practically sneak Santana in the house, past the monstrous study, up to Quinn's room where even with a floor and a door between the man, Santana had been constantly warned against making 'excessive' noise. This had been followed by the Judy depression years which had pretty much been the same. Whenever Judy had been home, it was safe to assume that she was hung over. It had kind of just become common place for them to spend the time over at Brittany's or Santana's to avoid that altogether.

Santana shook her head of the memories. Some childhood. She just hoped that this weekend wasn't going to be reminiscent of those years.

"I've pulled out all the pots and pans that you might need and I got everything you put on the list that you emailed me, but if you need anything, just tell me, and we'll be happy to get it for you."

Santana looked over the red-headed Judy Fabray. "Did Russell put you through this, too?" Santana questioned.

Prudence merely smiled. "It's tradition."

* * *

><p>Wednesday morning, Santana woke early to get started on the day. Before they left Boston, Santana had called home and her mom walked her though making Thanksgiving, and what needed to be cooked and when. Prior to this she had never put much thought into how all that food got on that table at the right time, but after talking to her mami she was realizing that it was a feat that took super human strength, and years of practice, to get it down to a science. Santana didn't have years, but she figured that as long as every got <em>something <em>to eat and every Fabray who came left still alive, she would count the whole affair a success.

Prudence was up just as early to make breakfast. Upon entering the kitchen she gave an amused glance at Santana's dry erase board where Santana had categorized every dish that she was making with a reminder of what temperature the item needed to be cooked at, and when it needed to be prepared. By her side she had a notebook of the recipes as well. "Is this your very first Thanksgiving doing this?" she questioned kindly.

Santana nodded, taking a seat at the bar. "Between my mom and dad's family battling it out in the kitchen, I never had to help out when I was younger. My abuela was always trying to drag me into the kitchen, but I usually had friends over, either Quinn or Brittany or both, so I had excuses not to help out."

"It is so amazing that you three have been friends as long as you have."

Santana blushed. "It really is. If you're fixing up breakfast you're going to earn some real points with Quinn if you-,"

Prudence beat her to it, holding up a white paper wrapped package. "Benton's Smoky Mountain hickory smoked country bacon and Dixon's wild cherrywood-smoked bacon. Does Quinn prefer waffles or pancakes?"

"Waffles," Santana answered.

Moments later a tired voice said, "Hey sweetie," and a hand snaked its way around Santana's waist. "What're you guys doing?"

"Mmm, you better be my wife, or else I guess I'm in trouble."

Quinn's lips tickled the back of Santana's neck. "And if I wasn't?"

"Well, then you might be my wife soon cause there's no way I'd let someone that feels as good as you go."

Quinn let go of her hold so she could stretch properly. "Why are you two up so early?"

"The question is why are you just getting up? Don't forget that you promised to help me with all of the prep work."

"I didn't forget. I promise, I'm all yours for the day."

"Just that long?" Santana questioned teasingly.

Quinn pushed on her shoulder. "God, you're really getting corny, you know that?"

"Oh whatevs, Fablo, you know you like it when I get all romantic and shit." Quinn smiled but didn't say anything. Santana gestured. "Prudence is making us breakfast."

"If that's okay," Prudence quickly said.

"Oh, don't worry. Quinn's a total breakfast whore, aren't you baby? She forces me out of bed first thing e_very _Saturday morning, don't you?"

Quinn staged a gasp. "Hey! You promised! And I told you that you didn't have to, but you said that you like cooking for me."

Santana turned on the stool, pulling Quinn to her. "I do."

Conversation was friendly between the three of them while Prudence worked on breakfast and Santana and Quinn got started on the first dish. A lot of the side dishes were going to be done ahead of time, with mostly the meat and potatoes being cooked tomorrow. They worked in companionable silence for a fair amount of time before Russell came into the kitchen. "Good morning," he said in his boisterous voice. "How are you ladies doing in here?"

Santana didn't know how to respond, and Quinn just nodded. "Do you need help with anything?"

Santana looked over at Quinn, curious. Did Russell even know how to make his way around a kitchen? "No, thank you, dad, we're fine."

"Do you need me to make a run to the market?"

"Not yet, Russ, but we'll keep you in the loop."

"Okay. Remember, I am here for you." Russell went to a far cabinet and pulled down four mugs. "Hot chocolate or coffee?"

Surprisingly, Quinn smiled. "Hot chocolate!" Santana said the same, following her wife's lead.

"Prue?"

"Hot chocolate, please, dear."

Russ talked as he moved. "I was thinking that later, once Judy, and Frannie and company get here, we could go out looking for a Christmas tree…if you guys are up to it. Does that sound like something you'd like to do?"

Santana waited for Quinn to make the decision. "That sounds…great…dad."

He smiled, and at the sight of it Santana wondered if she had ever once seen a smile on the man's face before. She was sure she hadn't. When the cocoa was done, Russell melted candy canes into the four mugs, and passed them around. As soon as Quinn had taken hers, she held her mug back out to him expectantly, and without hesitating he dropped three mini marshmallows into them. Santana quickly followed suit.

"How many?" he questioned.

"Five?"

Russell obliged her. "Would you like some too, honey?" Prudence held up her hand, and shook her head.

Santana quickly discovered why Quinn was so eager as soon as she took her first sip. It was simply the best cup of hot chocolate she'd ever tasted. Like seriously, the best. Quinn gave her a questioning look, and Santana let her eyes roll back into her head.

"Good?" Russell questioned, knowingly.

Santana gave a flick of her head. "It's alright," she answered. Beside her Quinn snickered.

Santana was halfway through her cup when Russell broke the silence that was falling. "So, Santana. My daughter brought it to my attention some months ago, that I never took the time to really get to know you, and I wish to apologize for that."

"Umm…it's okay?"

"No, it's not, but I am trying to work on that. L…Quinn was telling me about your job earlier. How's that going?"

Santana gave a slight nod, resisting the urge to boast, something Russell no doubt halfway expected her to do. At the moment she had plenty to boast about. Her presentation had gone well, and she was scheduled to have a project meeting as soon as they got back from the holiday. Her team also had a book launching on Christmas Eve, and while they weren't expecting a _Tiger Prince_ like premier, they were expecting it to be a hit, if not a best seller. "It's going well. I'm lucky enough that I get to enjoy what I do."

"You work at Little, Brown, correct?"

"Yes." She wasn't about to add the 'sir'. Sir was a sign of respect, and even though she was encouraging of her wife repairing her relationship with her father, he hadn't earned her respect. Not yet.

"What department?"

"Publishing. I do formatting."

Santana was expecting him to look unimpressed, but his look said the opposite. "A long time ago my family used to do stamping. It's how we got our start."

Quinn was astonished when that sentence triggered a half hour conversation between Santana and her dad. Although she was curious about this tidbit of her family's history, she wasn't able to get a word in edgewise, as Santana and Russell got into heavy talk about different printing presses, inks, and styles that carried them all the way through breakfast.

Judy's arrival seemed perfectly timed with the arrival of Frannie, her husband, Frank, and their two kids, Skye and Franklin, Jr., and Santana was glad as all attention seemed to shift to the prodigal daughter returning home. Judy must have sensed Santana feeling a little off because she pressed a kiss to her cheek. "How are you, sweetheart? Maribel sends her love. You look good, by the way."

Beside them, Frannie was actually doting on her younger sister, and the two of them were talking a mile a minute while Frankie held up his hands to be picked up. "Shy, this one is not," Frannie said, as Quinn bent down to pick him up like she did this often.

After they were all settled in, they bundled back up and drove out to the Taylor Christmas Tree Farm near the Ohio University campus. It was still early enough for them to have their pick of the trees, and Franklin and Russell led the hunt for the perfect one. Quinn slid her hand inside Santana's while they lazily looked, in no real hurry to choose. "Should we make this our Christmas tradition?" Quinn questioned quietly. Her eyes were on her niece and nephew who were running around the adults. She was semi worried about how Santana would react to them, but she seemed fine, occasional playing with the two of them.

"Finding a tree at Thanksgiving?" she questioned.

Quinn nodded. "Did you guys have real trees or fake ones growing up?"

"Fake ones. Definitely. Abuela was scared of spiders riding in with them, so we had a plastic one every year, but it was really nice." Quinn had been present for a couple of the Lopez's Christmas' so Santana filled her in on the traditions that Quinn hadn't been there for. "Christmas was incredibly traditional in our house. There was a big Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, and then after we came back from midnight mass my parents let me open one gift. If I got up before my parents, I could open my stocking, too. Then it was mass, and after that it was a _big _Christmas breakfast, and then _finally _we got to open presents. Every year I had to choose one of my presents to give away, and as an incentive to be good and not annoy the hell out of my parents and aunts and uncles during the day, if we didn't get into any fights, break any toys, or what not, we didn't have to go to the evening mass."

"I'm guessing you were the only Lopez besides your abuela in the pew?"

Santana laughed and gave a nod. "Without fail, every year, my cousins seemed to get the best stuff, even if it was the same stuff I got. And one year I didn't want to give away any of my stuff, so my parents threatened to take it all back. I told them to prove it, and I ended up not getting any of my Christmas gifts until March."

"I wouldn't have given them to you at all. Did you guys do Christmas pajamas?"

Santana shook her head. "Nope. I didn't even know that was supposed to be a thing until Philip was born, and Hazel said that they'd always gotten special pajamas on Christmas Eve to wear the next day. Did you?"

"When we spent our Christmases with my mom's sister she would give them to me and Frannie, but not when it was just Russell and Judy. Christmas was a production, just like everything else. Dad would pick the perfect tree, and mom would decorate it to mall display standards. Our house looked like a picture from Southern Living, and our light displays were legendary."

"I remember."

"It was all about the show."

"We don't have to be about the show, babe. Though at least one year I want to turn our house into a complete winter wonderland."

"I like that. _Our_ house."

They paused because Skye seemed to have fallen on a Christmas tree that was tall and lanky, wide in some places and skinny in others. It was the kind of tree that spent most of the holiday out of sight and usually would be sold to the poor bloke who procrastinated down to the last minute.

"I forgot to tell you: Cynthia sent five more houses that she wants us to look at next Saturday."

"Okay. Did the Fabrays open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?"

"Christmas Day, after church. Some years we were able to convince our parents to let us open up our presents _before _church, but after awhile we realized that that was worse than actually waiting because then we knew what we had, and we wanted to hurry up and get back home to them.

"How did you, did you celebrate Christmas with Phil?"

Santana nodded. "I don't think that we made any traditions, not really, besides the pajamas. I just followed Hazel's lead. She didn't make a big Christmas or Christmas Eve dinner because she didn't know how to cook; she grew up with a maid. And Christmas was kind of hard for her. Phil was conceived at Christmastime, and from what I understand, it wasn't under the best of conditions. Those first two years were kind of bland, anyway, since he was still a baby, and didn't really grasp the concept of Christmas. Or of wearing funny hats so he could have his picture taken. The year after that, Phil pulled the Christmas tree down on top of himself and had to be rushed to the hospital, which caused this big fight between me and Hazel, and she ended up throwing out the tree.

"Three and four were good years, though. Both years we sat around in our pajamas all day and munched on caramel chocolate popcorn and watched every single Christmas special on TV, his favorite was _Mister Magoo's Christmas_. Oh, and last year, Phil had somehow got it into his head, probably from some little punk at his preschool, that Santa physically punished bad kids, and that he had somehow made his naughty list."

Santana shook her head from the absurdity of it, laughing at the memory. "He was so terrified that he had evoked Santa's wrath that he attached himself to our side all of Christmas Eve, even when he, or we, had to go to the bathroom. To get him to finally go to sleep, we finally had to tell him that Santa Claus was made up, and that he was just pretend because sometimes it's fun for people to play pretend. Which then resulted in me spending half of Christmas Day explaining to him the difference between telling a lie, and playing pretend. The worst thing about it is, you've met him, he wasn't being a smart aleck or anything, he just didn't get it. It was late in the afternoon before he finally gave it up and opened his presents. And then everything was great."

"Philip doesn't believe in Santa anymore?"

Santana shook her head. "Nope."

"But he still believes in superheroes?"

"And talking, partying turtles. Don't apply logic to Lopez, Quinn, I've told you this before."

"Do you think we should do the Santa thing with our kids? Is a fireplace already on our list?"

"I don't think so, but that's easy enough to remedy."

"Good, because I really, really want a fireplace."

Quinn was envisioning her and Santana spending cold nights snuggled in front of one, drinking wine, and possibly each other.

"I'll make sure Cynthia knows." Santana shrugged a shoulder, giving Quinn's earlier question some more thought. "I don't know. On one side of it, it's Christmas, and it wouldn't be Christmas without Santana Claus, and his reindeer, and the elves. I remember waiting up nights trying to hear sleigh bells, and I sat out cookies for him, and carrots for the reindeer, and I used to get so excited, and that was fun. But then there's the other side of it. First thing, you're lying to your kids. Flat out lying, especially if you continue to tell them there's a Santa once they ask if he's real. Phil was just so confused by it all, and didn't understand why it was not okay to lie, but it was okay to play pretend, but it was also not okay for him to play pretend with us.

"Then you take into consideration working mothers like Hazel. They spend all year struggling to make sure that ends meet, pinching pennies here and there and giving up small comforts so that they can buy presents for Christmas, which to me is the real spirit of Christmas, only to give away all credit to a fictional man who doesn't even know their kid. Kids spend a good portion of the year hearing that if they're good Santa will bring them what they want for Christmas, but if they're poor, or they don't get what they want, they're stuck thinking that they weren't good enough, even if they had been, and if they _were _bad and you give them gifts, what kind of message does that send to them? I know I might be over thinking it, but I'm not sure."

"I didn't believe in Santa past four," Quinn offered, with a shrug. "Frannie ruined it for me, and when I cried about it my dad said that I didn't need to believe in a fat man in a red suit because Christmas was about Christ and nothing else."

Santana gave her wife an extra tight hug. "Hey, whatever we do tell our kids, we will always treat them with kindness and compassion, and be respectful of their feelings." Santana smiled up at her wife in a way that she knew Quinn loved. It was sweet and endearing, and just the slightest bit sarcastic. Vaguely, Santana and Quinn both noted that apparently they were taking the ugly tree home. "_That's_ the true meaning of Christmas, Quinn Fabray!" she said in her best Linus voice.

"Lopez." Quinn gently pushed her away. "You're such an ass."

Santana turned around and swayed her hips. "Yeah, but you love it."

* * *

><p>Santana was up early on Thanksgiving, surprisingly rising to smells coming from the kitchen. Her kitchen. She leaned on Quinn until she woke up groggily. "What time is it?"<p>

"If I'm up, you're up. Come take a quick shower with me. I think Prudence is making us breakfast again." Quinn grunted. "Not kidding, Fablo. If you're not up in five, I'm dumping cold water on you."

"You wouldn't dare," Quinn mumbled into her pillow.

Santana hovered over Quinn. She licked Quinn on her exposed shoulder. Predictably she squealed, and Quinn bucked so hard Santana nearly fell off the bed. "You're so gross!"

"Up!"

Santana went into the bathroom, followed closely by Quinn. Even though the shower was quick, getting dressed and ready for the day wasn't. Quinn had her wearing a hokie Christmas red dress, with her hair up in a complex braided up-do, while Quinn herself was wearing a black shawl collar mid-length sweater with red stitching, and forest green leggings, her hair in the same bun that she wore it in to work. And even though she looked incredible, it didn't stop Santana from resenting how casual she looked.

"Hey, at least it's red," Quinn teased.

"You are so on my shit list right now," Santana returned.

When they got down to the kitchen, it wasn't Prudence, but a silver-haired old lady positioned in front of one of the counters, three of the four burners occupied, and Santana could smell something coming from the oven. A red faced Russell, who looked as if he his face had literally been thoroughly scrubbed by a rough rag, was in the kitchen with her, bent over a cup of coffee. "Good morning," Russell spoke. He immediately pulled down two mugs.

"Grandmother? What are you doing over here so early?"

"How else do you expect to have dinner on the table in time? Now I know you people of color operate on "colored people time", but we Fabrays like to stick to a proper time line."

Santana's jaw practically dropped open. God, the woman was just like her own abuela, it was just like being home!

Quinn waited until it looked like Santana wasn't going to lunge at the woman before Quinn walked across the room and kissed the lady on the cheek. "Good morning, Grandmother," Quinn said in that patient but deadly voice.

The woman huffed, turning away from whatever she was stirring. "Well? Is this her? Your girl?"

"She's not my _girl_, she's my wife, and yes. Grandmother this is Santana. Santana, my grandmother Betsy Fabray."

"You can call me Bitty."

Santana was thinking she'd rather not.

Once the smells of the kitchen began to drift upstairs, the rest of the family started to come down, miraculously already composed for the day. _Of course_, Santana thought to herself. _This is a Fabray-fest after all. _

Breakfast was eaten in the parlor with Judy conspicuously missing from the assembled crowd. As soon as the food was eaten, everyone branched off to their own pursuits. Prudence generously offered to do the dishes as she, Santana, and Grandmother Fabray returned to the kitchen, leaving Santana free to get started. The elder Fabray watched with shrewd eyes as Santana got started on making the baste for the turkey.

"You're not making any of that Mexican food are you?" the old woman demanded. "Because that kind of food doesn't sit well with a woman of my age, you know."

Santana took a couple of breaths. "No, I'm not making any _Mexican _dishes; Quinn passed along the family recipes."

"Well, good." There was silence for 10 minutes before Santana felt eyes once again on her, and her mouth opened again. "You know, you really don't look like one of them lez girls. I once knew a gay," Grandma Fabray whispered conspiratorially to Santana. "In college. She wasn't as pretty as you; they weren't back then. She had her hair all hacked off, and she was just so unkempt. How she ever expected to land herself a man looking like that, I can't imagine." The woman shook her head at the memory. "I bet she had them AIDS, too. You don't have them AIDS, do you?"

She was so going to kill her wife. "No."

"And of course they didn't get married. Gays didn't know how to stay together very long."

Santana bit down on her lip hard enough to break skin. Grandma Fabray aimed a slap on Santana's shoulder. "But good for you!"

Was she supposed to take that as approval? "Thank you."

"You two signed a pre-nup right? Can't have you running off with the Fabray money now."

The woman went back to her dishes, but it was too much to ask that she work quietly on them, however.

"I knew a Latin fellow, too. He used to cut our grass. I could never figure out why they call them Latin. He wasn't from Greece."

Grandma Fabray got momentarily called away but she promised to quickly return. She had to make a proper banana nut loaf and apple crisp after all.

As if it were timed, Judy came striding around the same time that the eldest Fabray left. She placed a comforting hand on Santana's shoulders. "If it makes you feel any better, she's like that to everybody. What do you need me to do?"

"Shoot me," Santana joked.

Judy fumbled around in the cabinets before pulling something down and pouring it into a cup. "Here."

Santana looked questioningly at the cup that her mother-in-law was offering. "I was just joking about the shoot me. I don't want to die."

"Just drink it. It's a Pimentel family secret."

She shrugged, putting the cup to her lips. It turned out to be rum with a little cinnamon and a hint of chocolate. "Pimentel?"

"It was my maiden name."

"Judy Pimentel?" Judy started to pour her another. "Are you trying to turn me into an alcoholic?" she joked.

Judy shook her head. "Just trying to take the edge off."

Santana took the second shot. "What on earth would drag you back to this after you managed to escape the Fabray? You're okay with spending the holiday with your ex?"

"I'm okay with spending the holiday with my lovely girls, and their respective partners. I don't get to say that very often."

Santana rinsed out her cup and put it in the dishwasher. "You can visit with us whenever you want, Judy. Especially once we get our house. There will always be a room for you."

"There's that Lopez charm." She laid a hand on Santana's face. "You're sweet dear. And in case I never told you, I'm glad that you and Quinn have each other. Have you two seen anything that really gets you going yet?"

"We've only looked at two houses so far. Quinn's lease is up February 15th, but she wants to move in by her birthday, and I think she's going to divorce me if we don't find a place by then."

Judy laughed, but Santana was only halfway joking. Quinn had replaced her ringtone on Santana's phone to _Birthday Sex, _just in case Santana had any doubts about what Quinn really wanted for the big 30. "We're just waiting to hear back about our loan, but I'm not worried about that." Quinn's credit was decent, but Santana's was close to perfect.

"What's Quinn doing right now?"

"Talking with a couple of her cousins in the living room about their respective jobs. You want me to send her in?"

Santana smiled to herself, remembering how Quinn felt about them. "Nope. Let her stay where she is."

Just like at a family affair at home, as the day progressed, more people joined her in the kitchen, mostly getting in the way as they all had a thing that was their _thing. _Santana never heard a knock at the front door, or heard the door bell ring, but it seemed like every time she left the kitchen, there was another Fabray added to the pile. And either genes ran strong in that family, or Fabrays only married other blondes because nearly every last one of them was blonde. She had trouble navigating them, not to mention how much she stood out among them.

And they were all like the perfect Stepford family because they were all wearing dress slacks, and red, green, or paisley sweaters. They all looked like they were dressed in Sunday best.

"So is there any trick to keeping up with who everyone is?" she'd finally had to ask her mother-in-law.

Judy laughed. "Santana, are you saying we all look alike?"

She smirked in response.

When Judy left her, Santana remembered her iPod and plugged it in, effectively blocking out the rest of the world. She knew that technically she was supposed to be entertaining as well as cooking, but since it was Russell's house, she figured he could have at it, and was thankful that they hadn't yet bought a house because otherwise all of these people would have been in her and Quinn's space in Boston, and that thought was just not cool.

* * *

><p>Santana was breathing a sigh of relief, when the weekend was finally over. She had to congratulate herself on that fact that she, and to a lesser extent Quinn, had survived their first ever Fabray holiday. Overall, it hadn't been that bad. She enjoyed decorating the tree with Skye and Frankie, Frannie was a lot nicer than she remembered, Frank Sr. managed to tell two good jokes, Judy was hilarious and a godsend, and Russell was surprisingly not terrible. He had been tolerable for most of the weekend, and was actually a little fun at some points. And the rest of the family…well, only about half were like Quinn's grandmother, and none as open about it as she was. One even told her conspiratorially that she had voted for Hillary Clinton, as if that was supposed to mean something to Santana. She would have rather dealt with her family, or their friends, but while it wasn't something that she would want to do on a daily basis, coming here was something that she didn't mind doing for her wife.<p>

Russell and Prudence held hands as they followed the ladies to the door. When they were about to say good-bye Prudence nudged Mr. Fabray, causing him to lift a pudgy hand to his slightly balding head. "Oh, I almost forgot!"

He dashed back in the house, and came back with a small package in his hand. "This is from me and Prue."

Quinn noted it was nearly feather light when it was placed in her hand. "What is it?"

"It's an early Christmas gift from us. Open it."

Not knowing what to expect, Quinn hesitantly unwrapped the present, pushing aside a few sheets of tissue paper before she could see what was inside. It was a transparent, golden, spun glass,bell Christmas tree ornament, with silver filigree decorating the outside. Inside the bell was an image of Quinn and Santana, hands joined together, faces close together, Quinn laughing with an enraptured Santana looking at her. The picture looked like it might have been snapped possibly two seconds before, or after, they had shared a kiss. Quinn recognized the moment from their wedding day, when they had been cutting the cake. In black script along the waist of the bell were the words, 'Our first Christmas, 2022'.

It took Quinn a moment to find her voice. "This is really beautiful, Dad. Prudence." Russell seemed pleased that Santana and Quinn liked it. "Thank you."

He gave a firm nod, carefully tucked back into that Fabray mask. He gave his daughter a brief hug, and touched his hand to Santana's shoulder before they parted ways. Quinn hugged the ornament box to her. "-And the Grinch's heart grew three times that day," Santana whispered. Quinn glowered at her. "What?" Santana demanded innocently.

"Wow, babe, way to ruin a moment there."

Quinn stalked down the drive to their rental, Santana laughing at her back. "Oh come on, that was funny as hell, and you know it!"

"That was so inappropriate!"

"Oh, n_ow_ who's getting all soft, Fablo?"

"Just get in the car!"

Santana stopped right where she was, a few feet from the driver's side door. "Uh uh, babe, we had a deal. My gentlewoman's supposed to be opening all doors for me this weekend, remember?"

Quinn stopped to look at Santana and all of her audacity before jerking the door open for her wife.


	6. Merry Christmas, Baby

**A/N: Merry Christmas...kind of. So I kind of missed Christmas, but I got this out just in time for my birthday, so everyone wins! To everyone who celebrates Christmas, I hope you have a good one. **

* * *

><p>"Okay, just a little bit further. Almost…ow…shit Quinn!"<p>

When the Santana side of the tree dipped down, Quinn quickly dashed from around the tree to where Santana was standing, holding her hand. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I'm so sorry!" Quinn took the hand that Santana was holding it, and kissed it.

Santana jerked her arm away. "Christ, Jesus, Q, you don't have to kiss it, I'm not a baby!" Santana hissed.

"You're my baby," Quinn returned so quickly it was like she knew Santana was going to say it. Santana rolled her eyes, but then kissed her just for good measure.

"Why'd you drop it?"

"I thought you had it, sorry."

They finished drag/tugging the tree into the apartment, and sat it up in the corner. They'd gotten a Santana sized Christmas tree. It was midway in height between Santana and Quinn, which made it the perfect height for decorating, and perfect height for Quinn's apartment because the ceilings were around 8 ft, and once you got the tree in the stand and the ornament on the top of the tree, it would probably hit right at the ceiling.

"Did you have a star or an angel on top of your tree?" Santana questioned. "I don't remember."

"A star, for the star of Bethlehem. You guys used to have an angel right?"

"She wasn't an angel, she was the blessed virgin. Have you ever heard of where the tradition of putting an angel on top of the Christmas tree comes from?"

Santana had an expectant look on her face, so Quinn decided to indulge. "No, where does the tradition come from?"

Santana smiled brightly. "Okay, so one year, Santa was getting ready for Christmas, like he always did, but this one year nothing seemed to be going right. His main elves fell sick with the flu, and the back up elves weren't producing the toys as well as the regular elves were, so Santa was behind on toy production. Then Mrs. Claus told Santa that her mom was coming to visit; which stressed Father Christmas out even more. But it didn't stop there.

" When he went to check on the reindeer, two of them had disappeared, and three more were about to go into birth. When he went to load the slay he found out that the work order he put in months ago had never been completed and the sleigh wasn't in the proper shape to fly. After all of the toys were put in his special magical sack, Santa discovered that there was a hole in it, and the toys fell out and went everywhere.

"At the end of his rope, Santa went to his cupboard to pour himself a calming cup of tea with a shot of whiskey, only to find that the elves had already beaten him to it. In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the coffeepot and it broke into hundreds of little pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found that mice had eaten the straw it was made of. Just then the doorbell rang and Santa cussed on his way to the door. He opened the door and there was a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.

"The angel said, very cheerfully, "Merry Christmas Santa. Isn't it just a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Isn't it just a lovely tree? Where would you like me to stick it?" And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the tree."

Quinn little snicker grew until she was holding her stomach, laughing. Santana looked proud of herself for making Quinn laugh. Once Quinn regained her composure she kissed Santana. "You are so stupid," she said, happily.

"If you were Santa, I could see it going that way."

"Santana Claus," Santana joked, chuckling. She spread the tree blanket down on the spot in the corner where they had decided to put the tree. Santana worked on putting the stand together while Quinn went about sawing off the end of the tree's trunk. When Quinn seemed to struggle with sawing through the middle Santana stopped to offer, "I read that you have to saw it because if you used a power tool to do that then you run the risk of sealing the pores with the sap, and then the tree won't be able to feed."

Quinn grit her teeth. "That is very interesting honey, but while you were reading about that, did you happen to read about any tricks to cutting through this?"

"Nope, didn't see that," she said unhelpfully.

A few minutes later the bottom ring of the tree fell off. Quinn picked it up from the ground. "What do we do with this?"

Santana shrugged her shoulders. "Knock a hole in it, run some string through it, and make a necklace?" The expression on her face changed. "Hey! We could make an ornament out of it! Like, I don't know, incase it in glass or something, and keep it for every year after this as a memento of our first Christmas."

Silence followed her suggestion.

"I like that idea."

"I have all the best ones," Santana congratulated herself. "Hand me the tree?"

Quinn lifted the tree up, and guided it into the stand. Once secured, they stood back up. "What do we think?" Quinn questioned.

"It needs to be rotated just a little more to the left."

Quinn did as Santana instructed. "I said the left!"

"That is the left!"

There was quiet for a moment or two. "Oh, the right then." Quinn grunted. She made the correction.

"Is it perfect now?"

Santana took half a minute to examine it. "Yea." She turned to the tree. "Okay, little guy. I know you weren't the biggest, and you weren't the fullest tree out there, but it's not about looks, it's about heart, and whether or not you have enough of it to make it through to Christmas. Now I don't know what anyone else has ever told you, but in order for you to go the distance it's going to take grit, it's going to take strength,"

"San, you're talking to a tree,"

"It's going to take determination. You have to believe. Do you believe?"

There was silence following her pep talk because she was talking to a tree, and trees, well they don't talk back.

A short time later they found themselves at the Copley Place, browsing. Their stated mission: to find decorations for their apartment, specifically for the Christmas tree, though they would probably end up getting most of those at like Target or Pier 1. Really the trip was just an excuse to get out of the house, to see the Christmas decorations on the mall shops, and to be out together. "This is exciting, don't you think it's exciting, San?" Quinn questioned. She was a bit taken aback by how excited she was about Christmas this year.

"I never knew that you liked Christmas so much."

Normally, she didn't. Normally she couldn't make it through the season without getting depressed. Normally, she saw all the happy faces, and excited peals of laughter from the kids, and the lovesick couples, and she found every excuse to bury herself in her work and avoid the crowds and the people in her life. "This is our first Christmas, together; our first married Christmas!"

Santana didn't hide the smile. "What gives, Q? I'm usually the one saying stuff like that."

Quinn gave her a teasing pat on the arm. "Hey don't tease me for being excited about being with you and getting to do all of these new things with you. Don't you think it's exciting?" Quinn questioned. "We're starting our very own traditions right now. I mean nothing says I'm an adult like celebrating Christmas the way you want to."

Santana gave her 'Quinn' smile. "Yeah, babe, it's pretty cool. So what are our traditions going to be?"

Quinn gave a shrug, practically glowing. "I don't know. I liked going out to getting our tree at Thanksgiving, so if we're able to do that, every year, I want to do that."

They turned into the Hallmark store and were instantly overwhelmed. Quinn looked at the endless ornaments in front of them. There were so many to choose from, and some of them were obviously just marketing; they didn't have anything to do with Christmas. Despite all of the commercials and advertising saying otherwise, it all seemed impersonal.

"Anything catching your eye?" Quinn questioned.

Santana shook her head. "I don't like all of this stuff. I liked your dad's ornament."

"That was really nice. And surprisingly thoughtful. I bet Prudence was mostly behind it."

"Oh come on, give him a little credit, babe."

"I didn't say anything bad, I was just saying that Prudence was probably the mastermind behind it. And anyway, it doesn't matter who came up with it, because it was perfect, and beautiful, and this stuff just isn't it. I don't want to put it on our tree."

"You don't want to buy anything?"

"I don't want our tree to look like the kind I had growing up."

Santana casually shrugged. "I don't ever remember my parents buying any Christmas ornaments. I mean maybe we bought a piece here or there, fresh candy canes every year, but most of our Christmas tree ornaments were the ones that we made at school, or at home with my mami or my abuela. They all meant something. So how about we don't worry about the ornaments, and just tell all our friends and family that instead of gifts for Christmas we want them to give us ornaments."

"That's not that bad of an idea."

"I was halfway kidding."

"Still. You know if you ever actually give Rachel permission to go over the top, she will rise to the occasion."

They ended up buying non ornamental decorations for their tree, garland, holly, tinsel, and two boxes of multicolored balls. "Did we decide on whether we wanted an angel or a star?"

"Did we discuss that?"

"No."

"Oh, well then we didn't decide," Santana concluded.

On their way through the mall they passed by the Salvation Army tree, and Quinn knew what Santana was going to say before she even turned towards Quinn and said, "We should adopt an angel."

Quinn didn't even have to think about it though she was a bit surprised that Santana wanted to do it. She nodded in agreement. "We should."

Santana's face lit up instantly. "Really?"

"Yes. Girl or boy."

"Girl," was said without any hesitation.

"Do you want to do that today?"

Santana shrugged. "Why not? We don't have anything else to do today, do we?"

Quinn shook her head. So they went and adopted their angel, and spent the rest of the afternoon shopping for her. While they were looking through clothes and shoes for this unknown girl, Quinn took a moment to wonder how her daughter celebrated Christmases. She never really spent time thinking about it. She thought about Beth all the time, but she never thought about the things that made her up. She had gotten a brief glimpse of her daughter at the wedding, and that hadn't been nearly long enough, but now doing this shopping for this random nine year old girl that she never met, and never would meet, she wondered about those individual things that made up her daughter. How did she celebrate Christmas, what traditions did she and Shelby have together? What things did she like, did she like to do? What did she want for Christmas this year?

She took a brief break from shopping and Santana and found a corner to herself. After standing in the same spot for a few minutes with her phone in her hand, she highlighted Shelby's number, and gave her a call. Shelby had Quinn's contact information in case any medical emergency popped up and Shelby needed to quiz her on family history, or something, and Quinn had had Shelby's number just sitting in her phone for years. Until today, she never thought to actually call her, and she was surprised when Shelby actually picked up.

"Hey, Quinn, is something the matter?"

"No," Quinn said quickly, understanding why Shelby would jump to that conclusion. "Nothing's wrong, Shelby. San and I are doing the Salvation Army angel tree, and I was just thinking about Beth. Would it be alright…can I get her something for Christmas?"

There was quiet on the line for a few moments. Once Shelby told Beth that she was adopted, things had kind of been up in the air. There was probably the option of Quinn visiting from time to time, she knew Puck did, but Quinn had never asked, and Shelby had never offered. "Of course you can, Quinn," Shelby responded. "I think she'd really like that."

"Do you…do you know what she would like?"

"She collects guitar straps. Unique ones. If you could find one she would think you were pretty awesome, and if you made one yourself she'd probably think you were the coolest person on the planet."

"Guitar straps. She plays the guitar?" This was news. Pretty much everything was news. She didn't know the child that she gave birth to.

"No. She plays the drums. She just likes to collect them."

Quinn hesitated before she asked, "Does she see still see Puck?"

"Every so often. He sends her gifts for Chanukah."

"Oh, okay. Well, thanks Shelby."

"Any time, thank you for calling Quinn."

Santana gave her a speculative look when she came back. "I called Shelby. I wanted to send Beth something for Christmas this year."

"Oh." If Santana was surprised by the statement, she didn't say anything. "What are you going to get her?"

"Shelby said that she would think I was the 'coolest person on the planet' if I made her a guitar strap."

"Don't use air quotes, babe, no one likes a person who does air quotes."

"Did you hear what I said?"

"Beth plays the guitar?"

"That's the first thing I asked, but no. She plays the drums. Apparently she just wears the straps, or collects them, I don't know."

"That's pretty bad ass. You made yourself one cool kid. You sure she has your genes?"

"You know you're not half as funny as you think you are, right?"

"Bitch, I am hilarious. We should make her an ornament, too."

"What's with you and this sudden ornament kick that you're on?"

"I'm not on a kick! We're buying a house, money is tight, and making things means that you're spending time thinking about someone. And she's a rocker chick, so we can like make her an ornament from a guitar pick, or earrings. We should make her pick earrings! I'm so doing that, and I don't even care if you put your name on the gift. And I'm making something for our angel, too. It's decided."

And so it was.

* * *

><p>Cynthia gave them a very friendly smile when Quinn and Santana got out of the car. "Afternoon, ladies," she greeted them. Quinn reached for Santana's hand and Santana turned it over readily.<p>

"Afternoon, Ms. Lyles. How are you?"

"Very good, and I think this is one that you two will really enjoy. It's a four bedroom, 2 baths, 2,000 sq. ft home, $200,000 under your top end, and it's less than 25 minutes away from your work."

"By a minute," Santana mumbled.

Their gazes turned towards the house. "First thoughts?"

"It's not a Victorian."

"No," Cynthia agreed, but wait until you see the inside."

Quinn gave her wife a look mentally pleading for Santana to give it a chance before she immediately dismissed the house, though she could tell that Santana was already not impressed.

"Neighbors are pretty close, to-"

"But it comes with a garage, and you have ample back yard."

They walked around to the back of the house. "There's no fence in the backyard. Not even a little white picket one."

They went back around front and into the house. "If you notice there's hardwood floors throughout the entire lower half of the house, just like you wanted, and bay windows."

"We could build a little bench to put underneath the window, and have a place to read."

Cynthia smiled at the first positive thing Santana said about the house, the first indication that she could see herself in the space. The first bedroom they went to was on the first floor, and it too had hardwood floors. "We can put carpet down," Quinn said before Santana could complain about it. To be honest she had pretty much seen as much of the house as she needed to, but since she had instructed Santana to keep an open mind she needed to, too.

"When was the house built?"

"1930."

They did a quick walk through the rest of the house. They never made it to the bathroom, but judging by how outdated the kitchen was, Quinn was certain they weren't missing anything. When they finished with all they wanted to see with this house, they went to look at another house in the same neighborhood.

It was another 4 bedroom, 2 bath house, $60,000 more than the first house, with about the same amount of square footage. It wasn't a Victorian either, but it wasn't box-like like the house had been.

"One car lane," Santana noted.

"Yes, but the drive is long enough to fit two cars."

The back yard was comparable in size to the last one, though it had a fence up, and the neighbors didn't seem so close in.

Things only got better when they made it inside the house.

"I like the door," Santana said randomly as they walked through it.

Quinn agreed. Like the other house the floors were hardwood, and it came equipped with, "Oooh, there's our fireplace baby," Santana said excitedly. "Not a fan of that chandelier, though."

"We can easily replace fixtures. It can be our weekend project."

Santana turned towards Cynthia. "Is the fireplace wood burning or gas?"

"Gas, but the original fireplace is right behind the front, so it wouldn't take much effort to restore it."

Quinn and Santana exchanged looks at that. Quinn's eyes said she wouldn't mind the project.

"Babe, look at this kitchen!"

The kitchen wasn't brand new, but it had been updated since the house had been built, and all of the appliances were new.

"Do the appliances come with the house or are they going with the owner?"

"They stay."

"I'm not sure how I feel about the island table. We could probably knock this wall down to have a more open floor plan."

The ground floor bathroom was nothing to write home about. There was enough room to renovate, and even though Quinn would have liked it on the top floor (because it meant that everyone on the top floor would be sharing the one bath), so far she was happy with what she was seeing, and Santana seemed to like the house as well.

"This is a nice little window," Santana remarked as they walked past a window in the middle of the stairwell on the way up to the second floor.

The master bedroom had its own little patio that was big enough for them to put two chairs an end table, and a coffee table out there. "This is new," Cynthia informed them as they walked the space.

"I like this," Quinn said.

The fourth bedroom was on the third level. It was probably the largest of the bedrooms, and though it was a nice space, it was awkward. The stairs to get to it were narrow, you could tell it had obviously once been an attic, and one side had dormer windows while on the other side the wall extended normally. Although they could look into adding a bath, there otherwise wasn't one on this floor, and both Quinn and Santana agreed that if they had children they wouldn't feel comfortable using this room as their own, nor would they be able to use it as a kids playroom when the kids were young.

"It could always be a guest bedroom," Santana suggested.

Like the master bedroom on the second level, it also came with a balcony, a little bigger than the one downstairs. There was also a deck right off the kitchen, a recent add-on, they were informed.

"I really like this one," Quinn said at the car. "It needs some work, not too much, though."

"I liked it too," Santana agreed.

They looked at one more house before they called it the day. It was in the same neighborhood as the other two, and seemed to be an exact midpoint between them. It didn't wow either of them, so it, like the first house, went on their not interested list.

* * *

><p>Santana kicked aside a stack of interior design magazines that Quinn had lying out on the table. Quinn had been on a decorating kick for a while now, but now that the New Year was fast approaching, she had become really serious about it. Obsessed. The DVR was set to record every song on HGTV, and she had this program downloaded on her computer that allowed her to decorate fake rooms. Last time Santana checked, she had 10 rooms saved in her project box.<p>

Santana's head jerked up when the front door opened. "Hey, babe," she called automatically. She heard the rustling of bags, which caused her to look towards the door. "What's all that," Santana demanded, seeing her wife struggle to get through the front door.

"A little help," Quinn grunted.

Santana rolled her eyes, but she jumped up anyway, helping Quinn rustle the bags into the apartment. "Damn it, Quinn! We're trying to get rid of shit, not bring more into the fold."

"It was on sale!" Quinn protested. Santana rolled her eyes. "No, really, sweetie, it was a really good sale."

"Please tell me you didn't charge anything!"

Quinn placed a greeting kiss to her wife's lips. "You mean on the cards that you cut up?"

"No, I mean on the one you called Amex about and told them that you lost."

Quinn had the decency to look guilty. "You're not supposed to know about that."

"Did you forget that we're trying to buy a house?"

"Everybody needs at least one credit card."

"No, that's what credit card companies try to convince you of so they can charge you interest charges. No one _needs _a credit card. We've got our checking account, and our debit card, and if we don't have the money to cover whatever you're buying, then we don't need it. And the last thing we need two months before we move is more shit!"

Quinn frowned. "You're no fun when you're responsible."

"My job requires it." Credit was a veritable no-no in her world; she could actually get fired if she a) had too much debt or b) her credit score dropped too low. Right now it was as close to perfect as possible, because she knew exactly what marked you up and down in the credit world, and so she acted accordingly. It was easy to ace a test if you knew what the answers were. "Do you know what's one of the biggest reasons people get involved in organized crime? Debt." Quinn huffed. "And you know what one of the leading causes of divorce is? Finances. If we get divorced I want it to be because we can't stand each other anymore, not because you can't avoid a sale."

"Relax; I used the debit card, and it really was a good sale, I promise."

"Still. From here on out, the only thing that is coming in this apartment for us until we move are groceries. And I'm restricting eating out to two times a week and that includes lunches!"

Quinn rolled her eyes and puffed out her cheeks in a very Santana way.

"What would you rather have," Santana questioned reasonably, "a nice house, or greasy food?"

"I don't like you right now," Quinn said, walking away.

"Well, I still love you, bitch!" Santana called after her.

When Quinn came back after dropping the bags in their bedroom, she pushed Santana's legs off of the couch from where she had started to stretch out, and sat down beside her. Santana leaned up to give the woman a kiss. "How was your day?"

"Over. But let me show you what I bought."

Quinn handed over the item that she had kept out, sitting the box in Santana's lap. "Open it," Quinn instructed.

Santana did, pulling the ornament from the box that Quinn had dropped in her lap. "I found an angel whose wings form a star. That way we have both, and look-" she took the Star/Angel from Santana to plug it into the outlet. "It lights up! She kind of looks like you, too."

"Are you saying I'm an angel, Fablo?"

"Only the fallen kind."

Santana toyed with it. "I love it."

"I figured you would. Do you want the honors of putting it on the tree, or do you want me to do it?"

"I think you should do it, babe, because you found it."

Quinn unplugged the star/angel, and put it on top of the Christmas tree.

"Me too."

Quinn plugged the angel into the lights, and they stood back to admire the tree. "I think it looks good," Santana decided. She started to lean back down on the couch, but Quinn stopped her. "Hey, don't get too comfortable, I want us to get some packing done today."

"Really, babe? I just got home like an hour ago, tops!"

"So you need something to get your energy up, and exercises gives you endorphins."

"It's Christmas!"

"It's not Christmas until Sunday. The house has to be spotless for Christmas anyway, so we might as well get to it now."

"Babe, we haven't even put down an offer yet, why are we packing?"

"Because even if we don't find a house by my birthday, we will still be out of this apartment by February 15th. I've already cleared it with Mercedes; she says we can stay with her as long as we need to, so no matter what we will be out of here. We need to be packing soon; I don't want to wait until the last minute."

Quinn was sure that threatening to move in with their friends, even if it was temporary, was sure to give Santana an added incentive to find them a new residence.

"Santana!" Quinn said sharply when Santana didn't seem inclined to move from her position.

Santana held her hands up. "Calm your tits. I'm up." She climbed to her feet. "Though I think that you're just doing this because I yelled at you for shopping."

Quinn rolled her eyes in response. "Oh, hey, I forgot to mention. You have a black ball gown, right?"

"Yeah…why?"

"Our office party is on the 23rd."

"And it's black tie?"

"No, but you look hot in your little black dresses and I want to make everyone jealous."

"Is that you're way of asking me if I will escort you to your office party?"

Santana snorted. "I'm not asking, anything, I'm telling you."

"You're telling me?"

Santana nodded. "Two words babe: Fabray Thanksgiving."

Quinn decided not to pose an argument. "Okay, fine," Quinn said.

"Damn right," Santana agreed.

"But I'm curious, San. Did you purposely wait to tell me about your office party jus so you could pull that card?"

"You know me so well, babe."

* * *

><p>Quinn and Cynthia had both been waiting for 15 minutes by the time Santana arrived on scene, out of breath, but looking very commanding in her navy blue business suit. "Okay, I'm here, and I'm missing lunch, so this better be good."<p>

Quinn quirked an eyebrow. "Did you run here?"

"Not all the way," she answered. "I couldn't find cab."Santana looked at the squat red house that had the 'For Sale' sign on it. "Wait, is this it?"

"It's a Victorian," Cynthia said optimistically.

"It's a postage stamp."

Quinn nudged her.

"Sorry," Santana mumbled."But I mean, this doesn't even have any room for us to grow into."

"Can we please just look?"

"Fine." She waved at Cynthia to lead on.

"Okay, so like I said, it's a Victorian, and it's centrally located. I believe it's a 10 minute drive from where you work." She retrieved the key from the lock box, and showed them inside. "It's 3 bedrooms, 1 and a ½ bath, 1700 sqft." Santana opened her mouth, but didn't say anything. "The kitchen was fully renovated five years ago, and the wall between the living room and kitchen was taken down to open up the space."

Santana nodded along as Cynthia talked. Quinn could tell, though, that she had clearly already checked out. The house really was small, and unfortunately it had too much of what they didn't want. There was no room for a library, or even a large office, and the master was just kind of there. That there were hardwoods throughout the whole house wouldn't have been a problem, if there wasn't already so much to dislike. The few redeeming points were that it was so close to work, and to everything else, that the basement was finished, and had been cold finished for a possible third bathroom, and that there was a deck that led to a surprisingly spacious, and private back yard. Really, the back yard was the selling point for the whole house. It even had several old trees like Quinn wanted, and it was fenced in.

"Please just say you'll leave this as a consideration," Quinn pleaded as they said their good-bye's to the realtor for the day.

"It's the same price as the house in East, and it's 900 sq ft. smaller."

"I'm just asking you to leave it as a _consideration," _Quinn reiterated.

"Okay. Then I will consider it."

They had the time and they were close enough to their respective jobs to have lunch together before they had to be back at work. "Will you be home early?" Quinn questioned as they were saying good-bye.

"Can't. I'll be home pretty late, actually. You know I'm all tied up because of this book launch."

"Oh, right," Quinn pouted. "Okay, well, I'll see you when I get home, then?"

"Yeah, babe, and if I'm not in before you go to bed I'll wake you up, okay?"

They kissed good-bye.

Quinn didn't see much of her wife in the days leading up to the Christmas holiday. Wednesday was Quinn's last day of going into the office, and on Thursday, Judy flew in, so she and Quinn spent the time doing some last minute shopping, and looking at a few houses, Quinn recording the tours so that Santana could later go back and look at them as well. Out of the six that they looked at together, one stood out: a green and orange 1910 Victorian. It was essentially move in ready, 4 bedrooms, 4 and a ½ baths, with five fireplaces, including one in the master bedroom. Even the kitchen had been renovated, and they had a porch. Judy was even already picking out her room. Santana didn't have time to physically go look at it until after the New Year, but since it had already been on the market for over a hundred days, Quinn wasn't too worried about someone snatching it up in that time frame.

"I thought the gazebo was a nice little touch," Judy said once they concluded the tour.

Quinn laughed. "I thought so too. I can't imagine what we could possibly do on it, but now that I've seen it, I just want it."

Judy smiled indulgently. "Do you think that Santana's going to like it?"

"She's going to love the color, and the fact that it's a Victorian. Plus the library. I think she might really like this one. There was one other that's sitting pretty high on our list, only the bedroom lay out is kind of weird."

Judy reached for her daughter's hand, and held on to it. "How are you doing, sweetheart? You look good."

Quinn turned her face slightly towards her mother. "Good?"

"Happy, sweetie. You look very happy."

"I am," Quinn responded. "She makes me…were you…," She hesitated, but then decided to ask anyway. "Were you ever this happy with dad?"

Judy shook her head. "Never. Russell and I were only ever companions."

A hand came up to smooth down Quinn's locks. She was startled when her mom kissed her on the top of her head. "It's okay that she makes you happy, sweetie. Enjoy it."

Quinn smiled. "I am."

Quinn and Judy spent the night catching up, and the night before Christmas Eve she promised that she could entertain herself while Santana and Quinn went to Santana's office party. Santana had come home literally just to change into her dress, and then she was whisking them downtown to 3 Center Plaza. As far as Quinn was concerned, an office party was an office party. She didn't expect them to be good, or fun, just a way to do networking after hours under the guise of gaudy decorations and cheap alcohol. Santana's coworkers differed from Quinn's in that Santana's coworkers were the sort who went to liberal arts colleges and had MFAs, and talked more about stylistic creativity and changing the world through art, instead of corporate hedge funds and mergers. If Quinn was ever looking for stock tips she was always sure to get those at one of her office parties. The Little Brown crowd was more of what she would have gone to school with, if she had had the courage to stick with the degree that she wanted.

Santana and Quinn had pretty much just walked through the door, when a woman who Quinn knew to be Paulianne solely from the many times that her wife had described her, cornered them. If she thought that Santana was looking tired lately, it was nothing compared to this other woman.

"Santana! You're back." She gave a sweeping glance over Quinn. "This must be your Gwen."

"Quinn, yes."

"She's said some wonderful things about you. You're a beautiful girl, Gwen, and you have a lovely son. Santana, can I borrow you for a bit?"

Santana turned her back on her boss, making eye contact with her wife. "Babe, will you be okay by yourself for a little bit?" Santana questioned. "I thought I saw Dex at the bar, and Nichols will be somewhere in the thick of it." Quinn nodded. She knew how to mingle. She'd grown up making nothing conversation with important people. Santana touched their foreheads together. "I'll be back soon. Promise."

As soon as Santana slipped away, Quinn meandered towards the main group, focusing her attention on Nichols, because she recognized him. He was talking with two other people when she walked up, a chubby, amiable man with weather man hair, and a nicely dressed woman who seemed to be very evenly matched with him. "Hi Nichols!" Quinn greeted the man warmly.

Nichols gave her a one-armed hug and left his hand resting across her shoulders. "Quinn, nice to see you again! Where's Santana?"

"She got called upstairs," Quinn explained. Nichols looked about to introduce her to rest of their companions, but was beat to it by the other guy. "Hey, you're Quinn," he blurted out, and then for some reason he turned bright red.

"Excuse me?" Quinn said, kindly.

"Santana's wife. Wow, you're even prettier in person. I'm Thom Broncheau." She hesitantly shook his hand. "This is my wife, Nan."

This seemed the extent of his ability to hold a conversation, and he quickly excused the two of them. "What's that about? Did I mistakenly wear a party-goer repellent or something?" Quinn questioned at the man's departure. Nichols seemed a bit taken aback himself. "I couldn't tell you," he said in response.

Quinn passed another 30 minutes mostly in Nichols company before Santana came back to join them. She pressed a kiss to Quinn's cheek. "Sorry, babe," she whispered. "Things are still kind of," she waved her hands in a kind of nonsensical way, "about the release. I did get a look over that stills that you sent me though. The Victorian was nice. Has everyone been nice to you here?"

"Very nice," Quinn replied. "A guy named Tom…? Kind of blushed and then took off. Do you know anything about that?"

Santana smiled and shook her head. "I work with some weird people, babe. Has Dex come over?"

"No, I haven't seen him actually."

"Lucky for you."

"I thought you liked Dex."

Santana rolled her eyes. "No one really likes Dex; they just tolerate him until he disappears. Come on, there's some people I want you to meet…including the girl that I'm inviting to our threesome. Ow…just kidding babe! Geez, it was just a joke!"

On Christmas Eve, Santana was up and gone early. At 6:15, when Quinn was just getting up, Santana was heading for the door pausing, like she normally did on early mornings, to give Quinn a kiss before she walked out of the door. "Don't be home too late," Quinn requested.

"I'll try my best," Santana fired over her shoulder before walking out of the room. Quinn got dressed in a warm sweater and corduroy pant combination. Russell and Prudence would be getting there at 10, and the Lopezes would be arriving on a flight two hours later. Other than pick up the parents, Quinn didn't have much to do with her day. She'd sent out all her Christmas cards, her gift to Beth would be arriving this afternoon, everything was gift wrapped, and placed under the tree. She had done all of her shopping, food for tomorrow was already purchased. They had decided that instead of worrying over a big Christmas dinner, Christmas breakfast would be _their _thing, their tradition, so Quinn didn't have to worry about cooking anything tonight.

As far as she knew, she didn't have anything she had to do, but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something she _should _be doing. She wished that Santana wasn't working because then they could be spending the day watching their favorite Christmas movies.

Quinn arrived at Logan a half hour before Russell and Prudence. She passed the time by sending Santana texts, and playing elf bowling on her phone. She chanced a glance up, and made her father and his wife in the crowd. Every time Quinn saw her dad, she had to take a moment to reset herself, to reconcile the Russell she'd grown up knowing, and the Russell he was now trying to be. Prudence was helping with that a lot. She was just 'adult' enough to put things into perspective, and friendly enough to assuage tense situations. She just seemed to do things, without hesitation. She was assertive without being aggressive, and amicable, pleasant, but not a push-over. While Quinn and Russell were still figuring out how to act around each other, she just acted and worried about things later.

Prudence surged forward with a hug, and Russell quickly followed suit. "Good to see you again, Quinn. Thanks for inviting us."

Quinn spent the entire afternoon with the parents, mostly watching her and Santana's families blend in with each other. It was interesting to watching the five of them blending into each other's lives, but mostly she missed her wife and wished that she was here with them.

Santana came shrugging home a few minutes after the rents had gone back to their hotels for the night. "Babe?" Santana called out into the apartment. "Are you still awake? I didn't miss them did I?"

Quinn met her near the door. She nodded. "Yes, but they'll be here first thing in the morning for breakfast. How was the launch?"

Santana yawned and reached for Quinn in the same gesture. "The title is live and that's all that matters. That and I don't have to be back at work until next year. I'm bummed that I missed my parents, though." She buried her head in the crook of Quinn's neck. "And you, I really missed you. Are you really tired, babe? Can we watch Elf before we go to bed?"

Quinn yawned, too, but nodded. "Sure, San."

In return Santana smiled back. Quinn found the movie while Santana changed and got a blanket for the two of them. Quinn was certain she'd be asleep before they were even halfway through the movie, but if San wanted to watch the movie, they were going to watch it.

She couldn't say how far into the movie she got before she passed out, but when she opened her eyes her back was a little achy, and the credits were on the screen. She was also alone on the couch.

"Santana?" She started to sit up, but paused at the sound of a noise coming from across the room. "Santana?"

There was that noise again, a rustling, coming from the same direction as the Christmas tree. Quinn got a glimpse of heavy boots, a red cap, and a sack. Quinn stood up and made her way closer to the tree. "Santa?"

Music suddenly filled the apartment. Santana stepped out fully from behind the tree wearing the world's skimpiest elf/Mrs. Clause outfit, with a bow attached jauntily on her head. Words made their way over to her. "_Santa baby, just slip a Sable under the tree for me; been an awful good girl, Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight." _

With a broad smile Santana guided Quinn back down on the couch, while she continued to sing. "_Santa baby, a '54 convertible too, light blue; I'll wait up for you, dear; Santa baby. So hurry down the chimney tonight."_

Quinn founded herself straddled by her wife, who didn't break stride as she continued her song and dance. When Quinn placed her hand on Santana's hips, Santana smiled and shook her head, gently removing them. "_Santa honey, one little thing I really need...The deed... to a house that's just mine," _Santana winked, "_Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight."_  
>Santana finished the song, singing the words only a few inches away from Quinn's lips. "Merry Christmas, baby."<p>

"Merry Christmas, Santana."

* * *

><p>Somehow the two of them ended up falling asleep together underneath the plugged in Christmas tree. It had come together rather nicely. They had managed to resist buying any other ornaments than the colored balls, and their friends had really come through. Russell's bell ornament had now been joined by several others. There was now a gold star from Rachel, an Anderson Family decorated ball with Kurt, Blaine, Aubrey and Trayce's picture on it, a ballerina dancing on top of a jellyfish that was from Brittany and Tamara, Santana and Quinn's 'Baby's First Christmas' ornament sent to them by Judy and Maribel, abuela had sent them a nativity scene, Judy's ornament had been a lamb, an airman with a Christmas hat was Puck's gift. And Sam had given them an ornament that was nothing but a sign that said 'Gone Fishing'. Santana had also gotten half a dozen handmade ornaments mostly of the Popsicle framed picture variety from some of the kids at the Children's Hospital.<p>

The sleeping pair was awakened by the simultaneous sounds of knocking on the door and Santana's cell phone going off. They scrambled from their position to go put something less revealing on before answering the door to let in their family.

They waited until after breakfast, when everyone was stuffed and nursing full bellies, to exchange gifts. When it came to their turn, Pedro mimed handing a box to Santana. Santana pretended to turn the invisible box over in her hands. "Um…thanks daddy. You shouldn't have?"

Pedro laughed. "So, we meant to wrap up your gift, but we couldn't figure out how to wrap it up, so we'll just tell you what it is. Mami and I decided to cover the closing cost for your house, when you find it, and if it turns out that the seller is going to cover it, then you can use the money to buy yourself a nice housewarming gift."

Santana looked back and forth between her parents as if expecting him to be joking. "Really, dad?"

Maribel and Pedro nodded.

"Thank you papa. Mami."

"Thank you so much, Mr. Lopez!" Quinn trailed behind her.

"It's Pedro or dad, none of that Mr. Lopez crap. You can't call me that when we share the same last name."

"Sorry, dad, thank you! Thank you, mami."

"It's just something small we thought we would do for our ladies."

Both Santana and Quinn got up to hug the elder Lopezes and Santana remained cuddled up to her mom even after they broke back apart.

After all gifts had been exchanged, Santana and Pedro gave a rendition of _Silent Night _that brought tears to everyone's eyes. Prudence, who had never heard Santana sing before, was blown away. They played board games, and watched movies, and knocked back mugs of Russell's coco. Right as stomachs were grumbling, Mercedes family showed up, minus Junior, but with his wife and Mercedes' niece and nephew. Mercedes brought with her a special gift that she and Santana had been working on. The duo had recorded all of Sam and Quinn's favorite Christmas songs and made a Christmas album. They had made both a CD for everyone, and converted the music to digital media files so you could put them on your iPod or any MP3 player.

Quinn gave a glance about at everyone present, and was slightly saddened by the people who were missing. "Next year we should all agree to spend Christmas in Lima so that way we can all get together in the same place, at the same time. See all our family and friends."

The CD was played, and while everyone was listening to the duets, Quinn excused herself when an unknown phone number flashed across her screen. "Hello?" Her voice sounded professional, and stiff, the way it did whenever she answered an unknown call.

"Quinn?"

Quinn recognized the voice, and then she really recognized it. "Beth?"

"Yeah. I can't talk; we're sitting down to dinner, but I wanted to call you really quick to say that you're present was so amazingly incredible, and I'm going to wear it on my first day back from school. Thank you and Santana so very much!"

"Er…you _liked _it?"

"I loved it! You guys rock! I have to go, though, Bye!"

"Bye sweetie," she said. When she knew the line was dead, she added, "I love you, baby."

She stood there for a second, stunned, but then a smile spread across her face. _My daughter thinks I rock! _Santana gave her a look when she rejoined her family, but Quinn just flashed her an _I'll tell you later_ look, and she nodded.

Quinn watched fondly as she and Santana saw their moms, and dads, and the Jones' from the apartment at the end of the night. She had a feeling that was strange, and felt a lot like contentment. She didn't want to think too much about it because there was that part of her that still felt (and might always will) that anytime there was a good thing going on in her life, something would come about to ruin it, but the latter half of this year had been so full of good that Quinn didn't know what to do about it. Not even a year ago, she had spent Christmas alone, avoiding home and family, and pretending she wasn't lonely. Mercedes had gone home to Lima for Christmas so she couldn't spend it with her, she and Brittany had been broken, Rachel had spent Christmas in London, and she was too full of pride to call Santana on Christmas because that would feel too much like wanting her. Life had change so drastically, and so quickly. She and Santana had only been married for half of a year, but that half of a year had been so much better than the last four years of her life. If she was being really honest, it had been better than probably every year of her life. So Quinn was allowing herself the indulgence of being happy and allowing herself the belief that things would continue to be that way.

Right before they retired to their bedroom for the night, Quinn stopped her wife. "I have one more gift for you."

Santana stopped expectantly, her eyes darting over Quinn's body before she smiled, sneakily. "What's that?"

"Wait here."

Quinn went into their bedroom ahead of her and came out with the box that Mercedes had brought over for her when they had come over earlier. The expression in Santana's eyes changed when she saw the nicely wrapped gift. "I thought we said that we were going to limit what we spent because of the house," Santana protested.

"I didn't spend money, I bartered for this."

Santana gave her a suspicious look, but she took the gift anyway, and started to unwrap it. Quinn watched her intently as Santana's brow went from furrowed in confused anticipation, to annoyed as she tried to rip tape off that seemed unyielding, to expectant when she finally got the box freed, to curious when she was met with a plain brown box. She even shook the box as if it would give her some sort of clue. The best expression, though, was when she finally opened the box and saw the gift inside. It went from what is it, to 'what the hell', 'to is this what I think it is', to 'Oh my God', to 'I love this woman'. Which was what Quinn was going for. Her eyes bugged out as she individually took the items from the box.

"This must have cost a fortune for you to get this!" Santana exclaimed, protested. "Quinn!" but she was hugging her wife fiercely. "Baby…you got this for me?"

"Just for you," Quinn assured her.

"How much did this cost?"

"I told you, I bartered."

"With who?"

"Frank Hancock. He said it was sitting in the attic collecting dust and I could have it we agreed to watch the kids on their anniversary."

"Baby," Santana said again.

It was an original Nintendo system. But not just the system, it was the game system, the running pad, the color cartridge, _Track Meet_, _Duck Hunters_ _with _the iconic orange gun, _Mario Brothers_, and _Legends of Zelda_.

"You're so awesome."

Quinn nodded. "Yep."

"Are you going to play with me?"

"I will, and I look forward to kicking your ass, but I just want to warn you upfront that we have to get a converter for it because it won't hook up to our TV."

"Oh, that's no problem."

"You already have a converter?"

Santana shook her head. "I've got guys."

"You've got guys?"

"Tech guys, babe, and one total bad ass tech chick. Best in the country. Dude, wait till I tell Puck, he's going to be jealous as hell!" Santana looked as if she was going to rush off to go call him up but he paused to give Quinn another kiss. "Love you, baby."

"Love you, too," Quinn said to Santana's back. She turned to go back into the living room to clean up the leftover mess, and was stopped by the feel of Santana pulling her into her.

"Please tell me that you're not going to Fabray the living room when your body is requested in your bed."

"I thought you were going to go talk to Puck?"

"I was actually thinking more along the lines of thanking you. All night long."

"How are you going to do that?"

"Well first, I'm going to strip you down. Then I'm going to place kisses all along your neck and shoulders, slooowly working you up until your hips start to move. Then I'm going to throw you on the bed, and tie you down, so that you're completely at my mercy. And then I would take my time. Kissing over every inch of this skin," Santana trailed her finger along Quinn's collar bone. "Then I'm going to slowly kiss down to your stomach, slowly kissing downwards until your so wet and begging for it, and then I'm going to work you up with just my lips and my tongue, and even after I make you come, and make you come, and make you come, I still won't stop, not until you pass out."

"Really?"

"Well...no, but I'm going to cuddle the shit out of you."

Quinn grunted. "I swear, San, we better be putting down an offer on the next house we go to look at! And just so you know, I'm writing all this shit down!"

"I hope so," Santana whispered seductively, and Quinn wondered how a person who apparently seemed to be very good at withholding could still sound so damn sexy about it.

* * *

><p>The best part about Christmas being on Sunday was that you had that Friday and Saturday to get last minute things done, or to travel, or to just prepare yourself for the holiday. The worst thing about it? Getting up on Monday morning because you have to work. The absolute worst thing about Christmas on Sunday is when you have to get up the next day to go to work, knowing your wife doesn't have to go back into the office until that Monday, a week later. When Quinn got out of the bed, Santana made a half hearted effort to get up, too, but quickly gave up. Santana had been running herself ragged lately, so she didn't really begrudge her her sleep, much, but she had to remind herself not to feel resentful as, for once, Quinn was the one to leave her wife behind and alone in the bed.<p>

The day passed the way Quinn expected a Monday after a holiday to pass: slowly and tediously. Quinn could have taken her vacation days to cut out on the rest of the year like most of her coworkers, but she was still gunning for that promotion, and technically as long as the federal reserve was open, so was her company. Besides she'd rather save her vacation time for the summer when she was dragging Santana anywhere that had sun and the beach, for their long, long overdue honeymoon.

Apparently Cynthia went into the office, too, because midway through her day, Quinn received a call from her realtor about a house she wanted to show them that evening if they were free. Quinn passed the information along to her wife, and around quitting time Santana met up with Quinn at her office so they could drive over to the house together.

Santana looked so much better rested when she got to Quinn's office; apparently a day's worth of sleep had done wonders. Cynthia, however, could not boast the same, and for the first time since they hired her, she was actually late, and she looked slightly haggard. She offered a quick apology that both women waved away. "This listing pretty much just landed on my desk, because the offer on it fell through. Good thing for us, though; I think this listing is absolutely perfect for you two." She talked as she walked. "As you can see, it's only a fifteen minute commute, and the asking price is just a little more than that house that you guys liked in East Roxbury."

They walked down the short drive behind Cynthia, and the second they caught sight of the white house at the end of the lot, Quinn knew that it was something she was going to like. It wasn't a Victorian, so that was a little disappointing, but the manor's design was just as stately, so that small detail could be overlooked. And there were trees. Lots of trees. Old trees. And no neighbors right up against the property line.

Their initial look at the front of the grounds, even in the fading winter light, made a mark on both of them. The yard, in both the front and the back of the house, was private and spacious, and once they put some work into the landscaping, it would be a very handsome lawn.

"Why did the offer fall through?" Santana questioned, obviously liking what they had seen so far, even though they hadn't yet gone inside.

"The purchaser's job moved to a different state, and they were no longer in the market."

"How long was the house on the market before that?"

"200 days. And the house has since been marked down by another $20,000."

"200 days?"

"That's good. It means the seller is really motivated to sell."

"But why has it been on the market for that long?"

Cynthia waved towards the house. "Let's go look inside." Cynthia led the way and they followed. "It was originally a single family home that was broken up into two separate units after the original owners passed. About two years ago an investor wanted to make it into a B&B, but then backing fell out, so the renovations to turn it back into a single structure were halted. Then almost a year ago, the house was bought by a flipper who got overwhelmed, and it's been on the market ever since."

Quinn couldn't help herself when she walked into the front door. She already knew the house was big, but seeing it from the inside was something else. "How many rooms is this?"

"6 bedroom, 4 baths, and there's, I believe, 17 rooms."

Inside, the very first thing they saw was the staircase. It had a soft spiral, like a conch shell, and the steps kind of lazily glided upwards instead of simply circled. There was so much old fashioned charm to the stairs, really to the front room in general. There was crown molding not just on the ceiling, but on the floors and baseboard as well. Santana gave Quinn's hand a squeeze, and she looked over at her, unable to help her smile.

"Off to the right, here, right beneath the arch is going to be your two piece powder room."

They peaked at the space. There wasn't much to it; it was like she said a powder room. It surprisingly wasn't like a closet; there was space enough to move, to actually breathe. "And right across from the powder room, on the right, is going to be your library."

The room was pretty close to perfect. It was just the right size, not too small, not too big. And it had three windows which, Quinn was sure, would let it plenty of sunlight. In her head she could already see the window seat that they would build underneath the window, for either of them to read at, if they chose. "The room behind the library is the downstairs master suite, or a mother-in-law suite, with a full four piece bath and walk in closet."

A back hall took them to the other side of the bottom floor, where they saw the large and wide open kitchen, with a island, and bar counter seating, the pantry, and a space where they could put a table if they wanted to, but wasn't a formal dining room, which the house didn't have, having been eliminated by one of the earlier renovations. The master bedroom was practically identical to the suite downstairs, only it was slightly bigger, had a balcony, a fire place, and a window seat.

When they had made it back to the front hall, Cynthia questioned, "So what do you think?"

Quinn turned towards Santana. It didn't take much imagination to see why this house had been on the market for so long. Every room needed work done. Some a _lot _of work. The kitchen was pretty much a complete shambles. It looked like it hadn't been updated since FDR was in office, the appliances were all out dated, and there was even a hole in the floor. Half-assed projects had been started and never finished all over the house. There was drywall missing. All of the windows, in every room but two of them where brand new windows had been put in, would need to be replaced. And there was tacky wall paper everywhere, including n the front hall.

On the positive side of the coin, there were two rooms that had brand new windows, and except for the kitchen, the floors throughout were in near perfect condition. They had two functioning bedrooms, the master suite and the in-laws suite, and one and a half baths. It had also ticked off everything on their list: it had a mother in law suite, the basement was free space, it had a great backyard, there was privacy and yet they were still in the city, and only a few minutes away from both of their jobs so they wouldn't be looking at long commutes. Which meant more time at home with each other.

There was an understated elegance to the house, too. Even though it hadn't been treated well, the home still exuded grace. "It's like you, babe," Santana had even said, echoing the way Quinn felt about the place.

"I really like this place, San," Quinn said in response.

"I can tell. Do you like it like you want to put an offer on the table right now, or you like it like you want to add it to the list?"

Quinn stepped closer to her wife, tugging on her. "I like it like I really can see this being our home."

"Yeah?" Quinn nodded. "Even better than the Victorian?"

"That was nice, but I love this place."

"We really are the same, huh? I completely feel the same. Well, of course not like about putting an offer down right now, right now. Actually," she turned to Cynthia. "How late are you willing to stay?"

She was willing to stay late. Santana made a call and while they waited, they sat down on the bench in the front hallway idly chatting about their holidays. It turned out Cynthia had two six year old boys, which may explained her haggard look.

It took Sam 40 minutes to get out to the house and for good measure he brought Mercedes with him. Quinn stayed with Mercedes, while Santana, Cynthia, and Sam went walking through the house, room by room.

"Is this the one?" Mercedes questioned eagerly, once they were gone.

"Me and Santana are thinking that it could be, yeah."

Mercedes crossed her fingers and sat on them. "I hope it is; this place is so you."

They both looked up when the three of them retuned 25 minutes later. Quinn's eyes automatically fell to Sam. "How bad is it?"

Sam shrugged. "Well, of course you're going to need an inspector to come out, but I didn't see any _major _structural damages-,"

"So you found some non major damage?"

Sam nodded. "An inspector will better be able to tell you more definitely than I can once he tests. Just from what I seen, though, you guys are looking at at least $200,000 in renos if not more."

Quinn looked at her wife at this to see if this was a deal break. Even though the renovations didn't have to be done overnight, the house was already on the higher end of their budget, it was in serious disrepair, and with a house that old you didn't know what was hiding underneath the floorboards. All of that spelled even more money.

Santana turned to Cynthia. "Didn't you say that there was a deal on the table that fell through?"

Cynthia nodded. "So has an inspector already come out to the place?"

"I'm not certain; I can check."

"It'd be really great if they have. Following the inspector's report, we'd like to put down an offer on the house. Can you do that tomorrow?"

"Of course. Are you sure?"

Santana turned to Quinn. "Are we sure about this?"

Quinn nodded. They smiled at each other. "We're sure."

Quinn crossed her fingers. They may have found their house!


End file.
